A Voice of Reason, Published Each Friday from the Capital of Liberalism

60 posts categorized "Security"

December 11, 2014

The behavior of the intelligence community post - 9/11 is a serious subject, requiring an honest and sometimes painful discussion. Ditto the relationship between local police forces and minority communities. Unfortunately, there is more upside for provocateurs like Al Sharpton and Sean Hannity in sensationalizing alleged misbehavior than in addressing the difficult realities, while politicians such as Diane Feinstein are so focused on their objectives that they do not understand the damage done to the argument, their credibility, and the country by leading with alleged facts that are easily proven to be false.

1. The methods did not lead to the collection of critical intelligence;

2. The CIA provided extensive inaccurate information about the operation of the program and its effectiveness to both lawmakers and the public;

3. The management of the program was deeply flawed; and

4. It was far more brutal than the CIA led lawmakers and the public to believe.

The concise response by six former CIA directors and Deputy Directors - none of whom were interviewed by the Senator's committee - should be read in its entirety. Please do take a few minutes to read it. There is no denying what was done, and that in the heat of the battle there were mistakes made. What the directors discuss in detail are the results obtained - the start of the trail that led to Osama Bin Laden; the foiling of a Southeast Asia -based plot for a 9/11-type attack on the West Coast; the capture of numerous al Queda leaders, including the leader of the 2002 Bali bombing; much of the information in the instrumental 9/11 Commission Report and the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on al Queda. Likewise, the former Directors document their extensive communication about the program with the Bush White House, the Department of Justice, and leaders of Congress.

The Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee felt it necessary to release the report in their last week in the majority, and Senator Feinstein is apparently still miffed that the CIA monitored her committee. The report will have a greater impact internationally than domestically as leaders from ISIS to Moscow,Tehran, and Beijing use it to undermine American influence, threaten our diplomats, and recruit jihadists. Domestically, most people will see it as a confirmation of what they already knew as they cheer on Jack Bauer in the TV drama "24". It will be hard to start the desired discussion since the highly partisan committee led with the obvious lie that 13 years of safety have nothing to do with the CIA's aggressive actions in defense of the country.

The response to the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri bears some similarities to the CIA report, in that it begins with a false premise which has made useful dialogue difficult. On the substance, we know that immediately before the confrontation with Officer Wilson, Brown had threatened a clerk as he robbed a convenience store, that he tried to reach into Officer Wilson's car and grab his gun, that the forensics and credible witnesses show that he was charging the officer when he was shot, and that a properly convened and instructed grand jury - containing three African Americans - interviewed 60 witnesses and reviewed the forensics before deciding that he should not be indicted. If we are to be a nation of laws, the system worked.

The killing of Eric Garner in Staten Island a week later shows that a conversation about police procedures, community relations, and the grand jury system is needed in some places. Unfortunately, the anti-police Left had already used their ammunition in Ferguson where the story line was false - getting assurances of investigations from Eric Holder and President Obama, instigating riots and looting, pumping stories about racial profiling and police abuses. It was also inconvenient to the national story line that the cop in Missouri was innocent while the crew in ultra-liberal Mayor Bill De Blasio's city, led by an African American squad leader no less, was caught on tape and looked to the world to be totally guilty. Unfortunately, the public's attention span is short and the false narrative had been on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox beyond its shelf life.

If we are going to make progress, the conversation needs to be honest. Policing in high crime areas is difficult and dangerous. These areas are disproportionately African American. About 100 of the 400 people killed by local police each year are African American; about 20 of those are under 21 years old. About 150 police officers die each year in the line of duty. The great majority of the 6,000 or so African Americans murdered each year are killed by other African Americans. Much of the violence is directly due to gangs and drugs, and less directly due to broken families, poor education, and unemployment. Very little is due to police abuse. Ethnic communities need cops who are representative of the community, but qualified recruits are hard to find. These are the issues that need to be addressed.

Those who defend the public are due a debt of thanks and due process. One has to wonder what in the psychology of their attackers - whether idealistic or cynical - causes them to build their case on a premise that is easily disproven by the facts.

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This week's video is a short autobiography by Janet Nguyen, a Vietnamese refugee who is one of the "four flowers", Asian American women Republicans who were elected for the first time in November in Southern California.

November 27, 2014

Monday, November 24, was a momentous day. Judging from CNN and Fox News the decision to not prosecute Officer Wilson in Ferguson was the only thing that happened that day. In Boston, it was the signing of free agents Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval to long term Red Sox contracts. Viewed from Moscow or the Islamic State, the big news was the forced resignation of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense.

-- President Obama's third Secretary of Defense - Robert Gates (2006-2011; a heavyweight); Leon Paneta (February 2011 - February 2013; career politician; short stint at the CIA); Chuck Hagel (February 2013 - November 2014; a lightweight).

-- Early supporter of President Obama's desire to exit Iraq and Afghanistan. Accepted role to downsize the military (equipment cancellations, reduction of officer ranks), implement social policies among the troops (gender equality; gay/lesbian rights), and expand green energy use.

-- Overruled by White House at last minute on plan to bomb Syria for chemical weapons viloations; upset with White House for not supporting Ukrainian government; sought a strong response to ISIS; sought clarity about policy in Syria.

-- Dominated by Susan Rice as gatekeeper for President Obama. Rewarded with position as National Security advisor for lead role in lying about the attack at Benghazi in 2012. Little strategic vision. Loyal. Loyal. Loyal.

* Subordinate Ben Rhodes - top deputy and speechwriter for Obama since 2007. No real experience.

* Subordinate Tony Blinken - top deputy; background as political operative. No real experience. Nominated to become Deputy Secretary of State over choice of Secretary Kerry.

-- Second in import is Denis McDonough, Obama's Chief of Staff. Background as legislative staff member; some foreign policy education, but no real world experience. Sees everything in domestic political terms - as does Obama.

-- Gen Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff since October 2011. Supports women in combat roles; elimination of anti-Islamic content in training. Advocate for allowing limited "boots on the ground" to combat ISIS. Tolerated - at least for now - for occasionally expressing views of professionals.

-- Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan. Both tough and experienced. Safe as long as they stay away from policy.

Conclusion - Russia is marginally better off without Hegel, one of few in the Obama administration who understood or cared about Russian objectives. Sacking is statement to others that strategic clarity is not wanted. The Russian door remains open.

II. Excerpts from the report to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi of ISIS:

O glorious caliph, behold the news. Confusion and fear have consumed the military leader of the Great Satan. One powerless eunoch is to be replaced by another more powerless. Victory will soon be ours.

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The one Thanksgiving You Tube video with troops abroad comes from Germany. Nothing from the front lines - a comment in itself about the country's priorities in 2014.

September 25, 2014

President Obama's Middle East policy is imploding, a spasm of activity seems to be disconnected from specific objectives, and we are assured that the deployment of an Army division headquarters to Iraq does not constitute "boots on the ground." Egypt wants him to expand the fight against ISIS to include Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Others point to Boko Haram in Nigeria and an al Queda splinter group in Algeria. There is a real and growing concern about the spread of terrorist acts to Europe and the United States. With 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, over 3 million in the United States, and 44 million in Europe, we've got to figure out the immediate battle plan and the broader approach to the Muslim world.

President Obama's September 23 speech at the United Nations provides a typically eloquent framework. True, it got carried off into the Ukraine, climate change, ebola, and Ferguson Missouri. True, it is naive in claiming that the Golden Rule is a universal aspiration and that Islam is a religion of peace. True, it would be nice if he followed the constitution and sought Congressional approval for his actions against ISIS before touting them to the United Nations. Nevertheless, his writers did a good job of laying out four tasks for the world community:

1. Degrade and destroy ISIS;

2. Call for the Muslim communities to explicitly, consistently, and forefully reject the ideology of ISIS and al Queda;

3. Address sectarian conflict, particularly between the Sunnis and the Shia;

4. Focus on the potential of youth in Muslim countries.

Good thoughts. Where we were once concerned about a few training camps in Afghanistan and the risk to Pakistan's nuclear weapons, we now have proliferating safe havens, worldwide recruiting, and a greatly escalated risk of home grown terrorism. But who in the Muslim world will really lead the effort? There are a few options, each with some baggage, but that's what vision and diplomacy are about.

1. Sunni Egypt. The Sunnis do not have a pope, but they do have al Azhar University in Cairo, the preeminent center of study for serious religious scholars, and the badge of authenticity for imams across the Sunni Muslim world. Leadership of al Azhar was comfortably moderate during the Mubarak regime, and is again under the al Sisi regime. Had the brief reign of the Muslim Brotherhood been extended, there would undoubtedly have been a change of management and direction.

2. Sunni Turkey. The Turks have their problems - anger about rejection for European Union membership because of their Muslim religion; a restive Kurdish minority in the southeast who identify with their brethren in Iraq, Iran, and Syria; and internal politics characterized by a greatly decreased role of the military and a growingly authoritarian president. Nevertheless, Turkey is a democracy, is a member of NATO, and has a long history with most of the countries in the Middle East.

3. Sunni Saudi Arabia. The Saudis control the holy sites of Mecca and Medina, and the world's largest oil reserves. More than President Obama, they have an existential reason to destroy ISIS, and were responsible for assembling the coalition of threatened monarchies - Jordan, the Emirates, Bahrain; and Qatar - which has joined the United States in air strikes.

4. Shia Iran. The counterweight for Saudi Arabia carries big problems - support for Assad in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon; the nuclear program - the dominant US interest. Thankfully, the jihadis are virtually all Sunni, and it would be enough for Iran to sit out the ISIS campaign.

Hillary did nothing to develop relations with Egypt, Turkey, or Saudi Arabia, and Kerry has done no more. We are holding up arms shipments to Egypt because of the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood; we badger Turkey about their internal politics; and Saudi Arabia - well, they were Bush's friends. We need a Kissinger rather than a Carter.

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This week's video - a 2012 visit by Hillary Clinton to meet with the head of the Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, where she was met with a barrage of rocks, tomatoes, and shoes as well as concern by the Coptic Christians and the Israelis about the Obama administration's support for President Morsi.

September 18, 2014

To understand the war against ISIS, it is best to separate the discussion into three parts:

1. Is President Obama's strategy logical?

2. Can Team Obama execute the strategy?

3. Can the American political class provide the long term support necessary?

1. Is President Obama's strategy logical?

In a nutshell, the strategy is to engage a broad coalition, rely primarily on indigenous ground forces in Iraq and Syria to do the heavy lifting, and support them with American (and other) airpower, munitions, logistics, training, and intelligence. Implicitly this assumes retention of the existing Iraq and Syria borders with varying levels of internal regional autonomy, some cooperation from the Iraqi government, and no active opposition from the Syrian government.

Before getting to specific responsibilities and contributions, the concept of a broad coalition is easy. Intensity of concern about ISIS has several levels - first the governments of Iraq and Syria themselves; next adjacent states that are directly threatened - Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Lebanon; then the regional powers (Sunni or Shia) who do not want a rampaging jihadist neighbor - Egypt, Turkey, and Iran; then the smaller regional players (Sunni or Shia) who fear instability - Qatar, Kuwait, the Emirates; then Russia which has its own Muslim problem; then the Europeans who have a history in the Middle East. One might expect that engagement - military, economic, political - would vary with proximity, but there are plenty of like-minded folks. Check.

In terms of numbers, there are more than enough local, battle hardened soldiers to take on the 30,000 ISIS fighters. Rough numbers include 270,000 in the Iraqi Army, some 550,000 Iraqi armed police and special forces, some 190,000 Iraqi Kurd peshmerga fighters, some 200,000 career Syrian Army soldiers, and tens of thousands of Syrian opposition fighters. All of these numbers are problematic, loyalties are frequently more to tribes and clans, and the Iraqi Army has been shown to be highly suspect; however, these are big numbers and the global arms merchants have had a booming market for decades. There is raw material to work with, and our military knows the territory and key military leaders in Iraq. Check.

American airpower, augmented by a few allies, would have free reign over Iraq from bases in Qatar and carriers in the Persian Gulf. NATO member Turkey has refused use of Incirlik airbase near the Syrian and Iraqi borders, but adequate options are available far beyond the current rate of three to five airstrikes per day. What is needed is coordination with ground forces or forward air controllers to identify and mark targets. Syria is more problematic with well equipped and trained air defense forces in place. Partial check.

2. Can Team Obama Execute the Strategy?

The first requirement of leadership is knowing and being able to explain where you are going. Within the past few months President Obama has called ISIS the Junior Varsity, called the moderate Syrian opposition a bunch of farmers, and had a public dispute with his Joint Chiefs Chairman about whether there might be a need for US combat troops. No check.

A second requirement is to engender trust that you have a real commitment to the mission and to your partners. Playing golf 10 minutes after a national address about the beheading of an American hostage is jarring; renouncing use of American troops while asking others to step forward is a non-starter. More broadly, President Obama does not have any friendships to call upon in the Middle East - or anywhere in the world for that matter. Certainly not the Saudis; certainly not the Egyptians; certainly not the Turks or the Iranians; certainly not the Israelis; certainly not the Russians. Each will act in their self interest with no reason to bend toward Obama. No check.

A third requirement is a sense of competence for the task at hand. Releasing five Taliban leaders for an Army deserter is a terrible precedent for a war which is bound to be marked by hostage taking. The recent admission that we had no strategy for combatting ISIS was unnecessary and harmful. Our stated objective initially was to contain and degrade rather than to defeat and destroy the enemy. Secretary of State Kerry's back and forth on whether we are at war was troubling - we may not be, but ISIS has declared that they are. No check.

In fairness, a key element of Obama's strategy is targeting of ISIS leadership, whether they be in Iraq or Syria, without the approval of the local governments. The Nobel Peace Prize winner has been consistent, and successful, in unilaterally using drones and aircraft to eliminate the leadership of jihadi groups in Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Somalia. In the nuance of Obamaspeak, CIA and Special Forces operatives don't constitute "boots on the ground". ISIS' leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi is likely to join Osama bin Laden in short order. Check.

3. Can the American political class provide the long term support necessary?

While purists on the Left and Right have joined a few chattering opportunists to oppose the arming of moderate Syrian opposition forces, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and the Republican establishment have played it straight in supporting the President's request. Check.

More problematic is Obama's contention that he does not need the approval of Congress for the sharp escalation of engagement in Iraq and Syria, relying on a 2001 Congressional authorization to pursue the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks - a total reversal of candidate Obama's criticism of President Bush who did seek such Congressional approval for his war in Iraq. With 67% of the public favoring a strong response to ISIS after the beheading of two American hostages, the opportunity to rally bipartisan support for an extended campaign is at hand, but will apparently not be taken. No check.

And a word for the skeptics: President Obama has consistently put off the political pain of Obamacare until after elections; he has put off the political pain of immigration reform until after the November election; he initially claimed to be infuriated by the IRS targeting political opponents, but let it die down; he promised an investigation of Benghazi which never happened; there is a very good chance that in Obama's mind "this too shall pass." In fact, this week he has started a war on Ebola. No check.

What a legacy!

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This week's video is a short commerical from a small food store chain in Tenneessee.

September 04, 2014

Back in the 80's Margaret Thatcher's critics in the Labor Party referred to the British Prime Minister as "Reagan's Poodle". The two conservative icons sometimes disagreed during their largely overlapping and transformative times in office (economic sanctions against Russia; "Star Wars"), but generally believed in a "special relationship" between the United States and Britain as well as parallel domestic and foreign policy strategies. Both confronted labor; both favored a robust international presence. Opponents of Thatcher's policies tried to appeal to British nationalism by picturing her as being subordinate to the American president, but the personal bond remained strong.

The parallel today is certainly not the relationship between Barack Obama and David Cameron. The Conservative Party Prime Minister has a large raft of problems - the potential secession of Scotland from the United Kingdom; growth of the right wing United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) which would seceed from the European Union; and the threat of jihadi's returning to stoke England's substantial Muslim population. For his part, Obama has made it clear that there is no "special relationship" - snubbing Thatcher's 2013 funeral and breaking with The UK on Middle East policy. Some of this is understandable, given the Left/Right split of the Democratic president and the Conservative prime minister; some is due to Obama's anti imperial world view as reflected in Dinesh D'Souza's "2016: Obama's America". If not Cameron, who is Obama's sidekick?

Ironically, the world leader that Barack Obama keeps bumping into is not David Cameron, Angela Merkel of Germany, David Harper of Canada, Li Keqing of China, Shinzo Abe of Japan, Narendra Modi of India, or Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations. It is Vladimir Putin of Russia - and there is little doubt about who the poodle is.

The beginning of the end of the relationship probably occured in Libya in 2011, when Putin allowed a United Nations resolution to protect civilians from the Kadhafy regime, and the western allies went on to support his overthrow and murder, ultimately resulting in near-total chaos. For Obama, the "leading from behind" euphamism was born; for chess grand master Putin, it was clear that Obama could hardly play checkers.

The poodle relationship clearly emerged in Syria later in 2011, when Obama declared - without any plan - that Assad must go. Then came the "red line" on use of chemical weapons which was promptly violated by Assad, leaving Obama totally exposed. Putin grabbed the leash by getting Assad to agree to (mostly) give up his chemical stockpiles, Obama slinked off, and after three years of dithering the civil war is approaching 200,000 killed, ISIS has emerged as the greatest threat to world peace in decades, and we have no strategy. If we are lucky, Putin will give one to Obama; he does, afterall, have an interest in eliminating ISIS and he seems to shape events.

The facts in the Ukraine are different, but the relationship between the leaders is the same. We and the Europeans encourage the Ukrainian leadership to shift their alignment to the west and oust an elected president; Putin takes the Crimea, we do little; Putin supports secessionists in eastern Ukraine, we do little; Putin offers a ceasefire with a likely de facto partition of the country (as he did in Georgia in 2008); Obama visits Estonia to emphasize that what is OK in non-NATO south central Europe should not be attmpted in the northern NATO countries. Putin yanks on the leash.

Hopefully, Obama's national security team is smart enough to recognize the difference between eastern Europe and the Middle East. In the prior case, there are some messy border circumstances left over from the breakup of the Soviet Union, and it is natural to expect some adjustments when Russia has a strong leader and the American leader is weak. ISIS is quantum more dangerous for its neighbors, and for world security - if we have to accept a Russian solution in Syria, that is better than the Obama administration's emerging "containment" objective. Arf!!!

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This week's video is from an old West Wing episode - hardly a case of art imitating life in the Obama era.

August 28, 2014

For those who have studied the history of the 20th Century, 2014 is feeling a lot like 1938, when Neville Chamberlain returned to London from Munich waving a treaty he signed with Hitler ceding Czechoslovakia to Germany, and declared "Peace for Our Time". That was 13 years after the publication of Hitler's plan for Europe in Mein Kampf, two weeks before the Kristillnacht rampage against Jewish synagogues and businesses throughout Nazi Germany and Austria, 11 months before Germany's invasion of Poland which officially began World War II, and 14 months before the attack on Pearl Harbor which brought the reluctant United States into the war. Chamberlain hoped that treaties and speeches would stop the Fuhrer's aggression and the British public believed him, much to the detriment of civilization everywhere.

Vladimir Putin has certainly studied the origins of the war which cost Russia over 25 million dead. The Crimea with its heavy Russian population looks a lot like the Czech Sudetenland with its German population. Putin had already taken the measure of Obama and understood that, like Chamberlain, he had no appetite for confrontation. Germany's Merkel, Britain's Cameron, and France's Hollande offer "economic sanctions" challenges, but none has the military capability or desire to defend the Ukraine - and none is willing to impose severe sanctions which would cause significant pain to themselves. With Russia offering increasing military support to the "rebels" and expanding the territory under dispute, it seems that much of eastern Ukraine will eventually become part of Mother Russia. The risk to Europe and to the world is that Putin will move on to the Baltic countries - Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia - which were once part of the Soviet Union, contain significant numbers of Russians, and are now part of NATO.

It is unlikely that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, knows the history of Chamberlain's attempt to appease Nazi Germany. (He probably doesn't even know that The Sound of Music was about an Austrian naval captain who refused to fight for the Nazis.) What he does know is that when he pushes, he does not meet resistance. The Middle East structure of stable despots has broken down with George W. Bush removing Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Barack Obama abandoning the fragmented successor government, and a mix of western countries calling for and not supporting a rebellion in Syria. Into the void ...

Like the British public in 1938, much of the wishful thinking American public would like to believe that ISIS will eventually implode because the horrific treatment of prisoners and non-compliant civilians will erode public support. There is bad news, Dorothy. World history from Genghis Khan to Pol Pot is replete with brutal dictators who have lasted for generations unless they were confronted by superior force. This is not a Hollywood movie. Hitler died in his bunker, overcome by Eisenhower's forces and the Red Army only after 85 million souls went before him.

Were George HW Bush president, there would already be a "coalition of the willing". Virtually every country in the Middle East would like to see ISIS eliminated; the problem is that each has its own agenda - a restive Kurdish minority; the Shia/Sunni divide; protection of a monarchy; tribal competitions. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the United States has been the only cop in the neighborhood and Neville - oops Barack - has promised that our policemen will come home. After years of trumpeting his central international accomplishment being the ending of Bush's Iraq War, he admits that he has no strategy for dealing with the new reality.

Hillary's 3 AM moment has arrived, and she was right. The murder of James Foley has caught the attention of the American public, but Obama and his amateur national security team see it as a policing matter where the perpetrator should be brought to justice. The career military and intelligence officials understand that in the short term it is about protecting Americans who wander into a war zone; in the intermediate term it is about hardened terrorists returning to the United States with visions of 9/11 or Boston Marathon attacks; in the long run it is about a real country with real borders - a North Korea with legions of suicidal jihadis, an avowed intent to destroy the West, and, eventually, the weapons to do so.

Putin knows that he has a couple of years of Obama's promised "flexibility" to accomplish his objectives and will act rationally. ISIS not so much. The time to stop Hitler was in 1933.

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This week's video is President Obama's 2012 promise of greater "flexibility" for Russia after the 2012 election.

August 07, 2014

First, this posting is about American policy, not an apology or condemnation of Israel. For the optimists among us, the best path would seem to be the deal nearly brokered between Bill Clinton, Yasser Arafat, and Ehud Barack in late 2000 - Gaza and most of the West Bank to the Palestinians, a divided Jerusalem, and a greatly reduced "right of return" for Palestinian refugees. That was a time when the United States was the unquestioned world leader and a strong supporter of Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and the United States had a president who cared and knew how to negotiate.

Bill Clinton had carrots and sticks as well as words. Not so today. After six years of withdrawal from world leadership - in Iraq; in Afghanistan; in Syria; in the Arab Spring; in the South China Sea; in the Ukraine; with reduced military budgets; with the disgracing of the intelligence community - poor John Kerry cannot pull a rabbit out of the hat with words. What he could do - if he understood it and President Obama (and Valerie Jarrett) would allow it - is organize a set of allies who share our objectives, have skin in the game, and have been cultivated to take a leadership role. Unfortunately, that thought process seems to be missing from Team Obama.

Let's digress for a moment to the business principle of Succession Planning. Any accomplished Board of Directors understands that one of their primary obligations is to ensure that one or more potential replacements is being groomed for the Chief Executive Officer position. Some CEOs view this as a threat; competition within the organization is sometimes unhealthy. Nevertheless, long term company prosperity requires that there not be a vacuum created when the CEO leaves office, and that the successor has been given the development opportunities to be fully qualified and the Board Room exposure to confirm alignment of goals and values.

If the United States is to play a lesser role in world affairs - either because a President Obama is offended by American imperialism, or because a large swath of the population wants to focus on problems at home - it is essential that we think about succession planning, probably on a regional basis. Who is strong enough, has enough at stake, and is closely enough aligned with our interests to be developed and supported as a regional leader? Perhaps Japan in East Asia; perhaps Mexico in our hemisphere; perhaps Germany and Britain; perhaps Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. Each is subject to debate, but the point is that we need to understand natural regional relationships and develop those who are our natural allies - particularly if we are going to do less.

Let's see what the Obama administration has done in Gaza.

Aside from condemning Israel's attacks on civilian shelters in Gaza and calling for cease fires, the real work was in John Kerry's effort to convene a July 25 Paris conference to work out a settlement - and scuttle a nascent Egyptian initiative. The participants: France; German; Britain; Italy; the US; Turkey; and Qatar (where the political arm of Hamas is based.) Not represented: Israel; Egypt; Saudi Arabia; and the Gulf States - all historic American allies - and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (which governs the major portion of Palestine, has long engaged in talks seeking a peaceful solution, and is a bitter rival of Hamas which governs Gaza and is committed to the destruction of Israel.)

Not only has the United States withdrawn from leadership in the Middle East, but we have decided not to have our long-time allies and friends of Israel fill the void. Egypt has long been the major Arab interlocutor for Israel, but has fallen out of favor with the Obama regime since the military overthrew their Muslim Brotherhood government. Out with the old; in with the new. Hope and Change. The decision to deal with Hamas, exclude the PLO, and minimize the role of Egypt reflects a total lack of thought about who shares our values and objectives, and who can be developed to fill the vacuum we are leaving behind.

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This week's bonus video: An April spat between Diane Feinstein and CIA Director John Brennan about whether the Agency had hacked her Senate Committee computer system. This week's lightly-reporter update - well, yes, actually they did. More grist for the Rand Paulistas.

May 29, 2014

Somewhere in academia - maybe at Georgetown; maybe at the Sorbonne - a professor is taking notes for her next class of aspiring diplomats. Case studies are the mainstay of business and law schools; this week's events in Afghanistan and Ukraine offer great sharply contrasating case studies for those aspiring to careers guiding their nations to peaceful resolution of thorny problems.

Consider Ukraine:

- The western media and the White House press releases predict disaster; Putin's Russia seizes the Crimea and masses thousands of troops on the border; Moscow- inspired thugs seize government buildings and hold fraudulent elections in eastern Ukraine, presaging a civil war; Gazprom demands billions in back payments for natural gas supplied to Ukraine; the European Union and the United States threaten escalating sanctions; President Obama gives a speech.

- Then presto. Putin says that he favored the elections that the central government was holding throughout the country; the chocolate industry billionaire wins in a landslide; Poroshenko says that he respects the legitimate interests of the Russians and more "states rights" for the Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine; Putin says that he wants an agreement that Ukraine will not become part of NATO; Poroshenko's chocolate factory in Russia reopens after being shuttered for "quality concerns"; Putin publicly eats Poroshenko's chocolates; an agreement is reached to split the difference on Ukraine's natural gas debt; Ukraine's military finally stands up to the rag-tag secessionist agitators; Putin moves on to solidifying a long term natural gas agreement with China; Obama gives a speech.

- There will undoubtedly be further issues between Russia and Ukraine. In seizing Crimea, the Russians greatly reduced Ukraine's claim to coastal gas and oil rights in the Black Sea; there will still be nationalist legislators in Kiev who want to look westward; there will be UN resolutions and patriotic speeches about the importance of international law. The reality, though, is that each country had a leader who understood the realities of power and could prioritize their national interests, quickly reach important decisions, and exercise enough control at home to satisfy the other. The shape of southeastern Europe was temporarily in flux; it is now back in shape.

Consider Afghanistan:

- The day before Memorial Day president Obama makes an unannounced trip to Bagram Air Base to meet with US military personnel who are preparing for a politically-motivated departure by the end of the year. By choice or oversight the White House does not let the Afghan president know that he is coming until the day before he arrives; President Karzai refuses to meet with Obama at Bagram. Maybe he would have hosted Obama in Kabul, but we'll never know. Obama gives a speech.

- Karzai has long had a testy relationship with Obama. Maybe he resents being treated like a colonial figurehead; maybe Obama refused to pay the bribe that Karzai wanted to leave office on good terms. After 13 years and thousands of American dead, Obama talks of how important it is to have a status of forces agreement to let a few American troops stay behind and not throw away the hard-earned gains - as he did in Iraq after Bush's "Bad War". Fortunately, the two top candidates to succeed Karzai favor an American presence. Obama gives a speech.

- In the "can you top this?" category, the White House releases the names of the people that President Obama is meeting with - including the CIA station chief whose cover is blown, and who will probably need to be reassigned. The last time that a CIA station chief was outed, Valerie Plame in the Bush 41 years, the vice president's chief of staff went to jail. This time it, not so much. An innocent mistake by a public relations staff which made every effort to "unring the bell". Over at Langley there are a few folks who think after Benghazi that the White House is a bit short on appreciation of their role and the risks that they take, but they are just cowboys, and hired hands at that.

So, for the final exam question: "Rank the four leaders in terms of which are doing the best job of maximizing the interests of their country, given the resources that they have to work with. (This being academia, give extra consideration to Nobel Peace Prize credentials.)"

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And here is the obvious solution to the VA waiting list /capacity problem. Duh!!

May 08, 2014

In Ukraine we see the continuation of an Obama administration pattern that we saw in Libya, Egypt, and Syria - encouragement of crowds to replace the sitting government without a good understanding of who the players were or a plan for what was to follow. The first three were not strategically important to the West, but in Ukraine we are dealing with Vladimir Putin and a resurgent Russia. The problem is far beyond threatening e-mails from John Kerry in Kinshasa or a frosty discussion between Obama and Angela Merkel. Fortunately, Putin offers a way out if the administration and our European allies will listen.

In his farewell speech, President Reagan offered the following advice on dealing with Moscow:

"I want the new closeness to continue. And it will, as long as we make it clear that we will continue to act in a certain way as long as they continue to act in a helpful manner. If and when they don't, at first pull your punches. If they persist, pull the plug. It's still trust by verify. It's still play, but cut the cards. It's still watch closely. And don't be afraid to see what you see." The last phrase is the most relevant here.

Vladimir Putin can see through our cards and knows that we are holding a pair of threes. President Obama, John Kerry, and the European Union, it would seem, are afraid to see what Putin is showing them.

First, the broader picture. The Russian empire is not like the western European empires which expanded around the world and could contract without directly threatening the homeland. Instead, when the Russian empire has contracted it has brought rivals in force to the gates of Moscow - the Mongols, Napoleon, Hitler. With the collapse of the Soviet Union the European protective buffer moved 400 miles to the east, millions of former subjects are now members of the European Union and NATO, and the ebbing tide has left Russian nationals stranded in enclaves from the Baltics to the Black Sea. For Putin, enough is enough.

Russia did not upset the status quo in Ukraine; the West did. Putin's specific gripes:

- Since 2009 the European Union has been encouraging an "Eastern Partnership" under which Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus could integrate into the western bloc, with the potential for future membership. Russia has instead sought Ukrainan participation in an economic association of former Soviet republics, using Russia's longstanding supply of natural gas as a club.

- In February, when Ukranian President Yanukovich defied his parliament by opting to continue Ukraine's alignment with Russia and rejecting the EU affiliation offer, he was overthrown. Within a month his appointed successor signed the affiliation agreement with the 28 European Union states setting off the current conflict.

- Concurrently, the Kiev parliment repealed a 2012 law which formalized the right of minorities to use languages other than Ukranian for local government matters, thus stoking fears among the Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine. Yanukovich's successor vetoed the law, but the geni was out of the bottle.

So, what would Reagan have seen? The European Union, notably Germany, is not willing to impose sanctions which would severely disrupt their economiies. The Russians have accomplished their minimal objective by incorporating the Crimea into Russia. Even in eastern Ukraine, Russian-speakers are a minority of about 38%, making assimilation problematic. Military conflict is unpredictable and subject to miscalculation, with the Russians posessing vastly superior forces.

Fortunately, Putin has told the world what he wants , even if the West has been unwilling to listen - non-aligned status for Ukraine and a new constitution giving autonomy to the eastern regions where the Russian minority is centered. (Oh, and to keep the Crimea.) Non-alignment is not a new concept on the Russian border - post WW II the pragmatic agrement was to keep Finland and Austria out of the Warsaw Pact and NATO alliances which faced off across Europe. It didn't too much matter what the Finns and the Austrians wanted.

In a different era, with different leadership, the West would be able to accept the reality that the push into Russia's historic sphere of influence is over. Hopefully fewer lives will be lost in Ukraine than in Syria before the realities are recognized and an accomodation is reached. But then, leadership requires the ability to determine a course of action and convince others to follow. As many have noted, we don't do world leadership anymore.

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This week's video comes courtesy of Jerry Mrozek, a California reader and former schoolmate. Trey Gowdy will lead the House select committee investigating Benghazi.

May 01, 2014

The question being asked in the blogosphere and occasionally in a press conference is what Hillary actually accomplished during her "frequent flyer" tenure at State. The official Foggy Bottom response - the press office couldn't think of anything. In her own words, the best that she has been able to come up with is "setting the values and standards." The better question is: to what extent is Hillary Clinton to blame for the increasingly obvious foreign policy failure of the Obama administration? (Even Maureen Dowd is now criticizing Obama for trying to be a singles hitter.)

Let's put the foreign policy record of the Hillary Clinton era into three categories: Subjects for which the Secretary of State had primary responsibility; subjects where the Secretary had a major seat at the table, but may not have been listened to; foreign policy subjects where the president or another cabinet member rolled over her.

1. Primary responsibility:

- Benghazi. Obama and Clinton may be successful in stonewalling official investigation into who told the military to not attempt a rescue, or who came up with the "peaceful demonstration" malarkey, but the Ambassador was her guy, operating in a known unsafe environment with security procedures which did not meet State Department guidelines. The petulent "what difference does it make" testimony was the lowlight of her tenure - to be replayed ad nauseum.

- Iraq exit. Any question of State Department facilities funding should begin with the question of the $750,000,000 spent on the new Baghdad embassy in 2009-2010. The primary responsibility for negotiating a "Status of Forces" agreement (wanted by Sunni, Shia, Kurds, and the US) to ensure post-American stability rested with State. No agreement; total withdrawal; escalating sectarian conflict.

- Russia reset. Clinton famously presented the big red "Reset" button to Foreign Minister Lavrov in 2009, with a mis-translation of "reset" as "overcharged". It was an embarrasing joke at the time, but a premonition as we cancelled missile defense plans in eastern Europe, and invited Putin's Russia into the western economic system - only to be met by Putin's plans to recapture as much of the former Soviet Union as he can get away with.

2. Major seat at the table

- XL Pipeline. On paper, and probably in the early stages of debate, the decision about the XL Pipeline belonged to Hillary's State Department since it crossed national borders. (The EPA and the Department of Transportation had no objections.) For four years the disrespected government of Canada has watched American environmental politics block one of its major economic initiatives.

- Asian pivot. The Administration's code phrase for "the war on terror is won and Russia is pacified" was the "Pivot to Asia" in American foreign policy. Years later we have been unable to negotiate a trade agreement with Japan, the pan-Pacific free trade area has not gotten off of the ground, and an expansionist China is bumping into our allies in the South China Sea and the Philippines. North Korea has been delegated to Dennis Rodman to handle with his "basketball diplomacy".

- Libya - Egypt - Syria - Palestine. All major foci at points in time. No progress during Clinton's years. Some opportunities lost while "leading from behind".

- Iran. TBD. Time will tell if economic sanctions will be sufficient to convince Iranian leadership to terminate their nascent nuclear weapons program with necessary verification. If so, Hillary, Obama, and others deserve the credit that they will claim.

3. Tertiary role

- Fast and Furious. Most American discussion has been about the border patrol agent who was killed with weapons sold to a Mexican cartel as part of a sting operation. From a Mexican perspective, they were not notified of the operation, over 100 Mexicans were killed, there has not been an adequate explanation, and the Gringos don't care about them. Mostly Eric Holder's issue, but State had some role other than offering platitudes.

- Economic bailout. The response to the 2008 financial collapse was led by Hank Paulson (later Tim Geithner) at Treasury and Ben Bernanke at the Fed. One of the key decisions was to use the Troubled Asset Relief Plan (TARP) to backstop the global banking system - primarily by covering nearly 200 billion in AIG insurance obligations on mortgage instruments held by foreign banks. Sometime in 2015 the Clintonistas will probably realize that this was actually Hillary's idea, and that all of the funds have been recovered.

- Communications security. The 2010 Wikileaks disclosure of millions of classified State Department communications was a major embarrasment to the government and the largest-ever inhibitor to diplomatic dialogue - at least until Edward Snowden's 2013 revelations about the domestic and global operations of the National Security Agency. Hillary deserves neither credit nor blame, but things certainly went south on her watch.

As 2015 and 2016 unfold it will be interesting to see what Clinton tries to take credit for and how she distances herself from the administration's central theme of reducing American global leadership. Joe Biden - still a competitor for the nomination - deserves credit as lead champion for the program of killing terrorists with drone strikes, and has been a major globe-trotter himself. In fairness, John Kerry's ambitious beginning and subsequent failure in Israel/Palestine, Syria and Ukraine offers Clinton some cover - better for her that he fails. The Clintonistas will claim that nobody could have done better than Hillary did, given the hand that she was dealt; the Republicans will blame the Obama/Clinton "leading from behind" strategy for ceding the world to the Assads, the Putins, and the Xi Jinpings. Hopefuly nothing will blow up before January 2017.

April 17, 2014

As Vladimir Putin considers his next steps toward returning the Russian Empire to its highpoint of a half century ago, it is good that he understands his strengths and weaknesses and the interests of his primary antagonist - Angela Merkel's Germany.

Some realities:

- Having been invaded by Napoleon and Hitler, it is important for Russia to maintain a buffer between itself and the West. Before the Soviet Union fell apart under Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev it included both states directly taken over by Moscow - the Baltics (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia), Belorussia, Ukraine, and Georgia, as well as the further-west buffer of the Warsaw Pact (including Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary). Today only Belorussia remains in the Russian orbit, with most of central Europe having joined to 28-member European union. Most is irretrievably lost.

- Neither representative democracy nor pluralistic capitalism took root after the Soviet Union's collapse. Russia's economy suffers from an extreme dependence on oil and gas, concentration of wealth in the hands of relatively few billionaires who scooped up the state institutions under Gorbachov, and the residual enui of Soviet socialism. Russia's Gross Domestic Product is relatively small - $2 trillion dollars, compared to $16 trillion for the US, $8 trillion for China, or $3.4 trillion for Germany. What's more, growth is stagnant, population is shrinking slightly, and the rich are good at getting their capital out of the country. Aside from energy, Putin does not have many economic cards to play.

- But he does hold the energy card, and for Europe it is a high trump. Russia provides about 30% of Europe's natural gas with a majority of that piped through Ukraine. Politics of the Russia-Ukraine gas relationship have long been stormy, with discounts in good times, shut-offs in bad times, and Ukrainian diversion of gas bound for other countries. A direct line to Germany was opened in 2011 and a third link, bypassing Ukraine under the Black Sea, is under development. Were the timing of this crisis under Putin's control, it would have occured in the Fall rather than the Spring. More to the point for potential Western financial assistance, billions of financial aid poured into Ukraine would quickly wind up in the coffers of Gazprom one way or another.

Putin has taken the measure of Barack Obama and understands the latitude that he has - Edward Snowden; Syria; Crimea. Despite John McCain's predictable sabre-rattling there is little strategic American interest in Ukraine - certainly not in proportion to Russia's strategic interest. April 8 Department of Defense testimony to a Senate panel confirmed that we are going forward with FY2015 plans to significantly reduce the number of deployed ICBMs, nuclear missile submarines, and strategic bombers without even a token delay. We did send CIA Director Brennan to Kiev, perhaps as a statement that we couldn't match the Russians' 40,000 massed troops, but we could rally the opposition in the event of a Russian invasion.

In his years in power Putin has been easy to understand, if we have tried. When Foreign Minister Lavrov calls for a loosely federated, non-aligned Ukraine - similar to Finland - he should be taken seriously. Crimea is different, a home for the Black Sea Fleet which is central to Russia's long quest for a warm water port. The rest of Ukraine? It is probably enough that they not be part of NATO or the European Union - and that they pay their gas bill.

The broader picture will become the focus in the coming weeks. If Ukraine, why not the Baltic states, Slovakia, or Poland? There is a two part answer - neither of which is spelled O-B-A-M-A. First, they are members of NATO and the alliance is starting to demonstrate that it would honor its commitment to defend any member that is attacked. Second - and related - is that Angela Merkel, born in communist East Germany, understands post-Soviet Europe as well as Putin, cares a whole lot more than Obama does, and is not to be trifled with.

March 20, 2014

It is perhaps to be expected that five years into the reign of a liberal Democrat president, after a decade of war, and with four years of increasing budget constraint, the veteran community would have a lot to be unhappy about. And they do. Let's put the gripes into three buckets:

1. National security policy.

The bottom line is that it is hard for people who have risked their lives for the country to accept a policy of withdrawal from world leadership, particularly when the major decisions are made primarily from domestic political calculation in a spirit of "leading from behind."

High among the policy concerns is the apparent indifference to negotiating a Status of Forces agreement with the Maliki government in Iraq which would have allowed a small residual American force to maintain the balance between the Shia and the Sunni. After the loss of 4500 Americans, we have seen the Sunni minority marginalized with the result that the jihadists have been able to return in force. The administration's incompetence in dealing with Harmid Karzai is on the verge of obtaining the same result in Afghanistan where the rules of engagement were changed in 2009, roughly doubling the rate of American casualties.

The Benghazi scandal is a flash point for veterans with the President and his advisors, reflecting lack of concern for the fate of those on the front lines - first with the Secretary of State ignoring safety considerations for the consulate, then with the President refusing to authorize cross border operations to support those under attack, then with the patently phony "video" story and refusal to allow an objective investigation of what happened. Calls for John Boehner to convene a House Select Investigating Committee with subpoena power have gone unanswered - hopefully for timing considerations relative to the 2016 election.

2. The president's social agenda

The military has often been a leading forum for societal change, famously with racial integration under presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. That is good, but it does not come without struggle. The repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" affecting gays and lesbians in 2011 may be followed by a repeal of the remaining prohibition of transgender service members.

Women have also been playing a larger role in the military. Women were first accepted at the academies in 1976, the great majority of military occupations have been opened to women, and thousands have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the 1994 army order prohibiting women from combat operations was not overturned until 2013. The resulting sexual harassment epidemic has garnered most of the headlines, but there is also a "dumbing down" of the physical requirements for combat positions in which political correctness meets battlefield realities.

A combination of factors - outspoken opposition to Obama's policies, personal ethical shortcomings, and professional underperformance - has led to an unusually large number of retirements among senior military leaders, from Stanley McChrystal in 2010, to David Petraeus in 2012, to at least nine senior generals in 2013. To many, this looks like a purge.

3. Implications of the budget

Many veterans are conflicted by the increasingly tight budgetary implications of the sequester, in which the administration's quest for more social spending and tax increases has met a Republican House willing to accept increasing constraints on military spending, resulting in Army manpower reductions to pre-World War II levels, a major reduction in the Navy's ships for near-coast combat, and a substantial reduction in Air Force tanker, U-2 spy, and close air support aircraft.

Of interest to current military members, signing and reenlistment bonuses have been reduced, pay increases have been limited to 1% for the current year, the military healthcare system has been cut by $3 billion, and tuition assistance has been frozen. A 1 % reduction in the Cost of Living adjustment for military pensions in the Ryan-Murray budget agreement, saving $6 billion over 10 years, has caused much resentment, but has little chance of reversal.

The more sensitive issue with veterans is the performance - or rather the lack of performance - in dealing with disability claims. Backlogged claims (over 125 days) increased from about 100,000 to over 500,000 in Obama's first year in office, and have now settled at about 400,000 with an average completion time of about 300 days. One would hope to maintain integrity in the system, but for veterans in true need the delay is devastating.

For those more politically active, there is the Combat Veterans for Congress Political Action Committee, founded in 2009, which supports combat veterans who espouse fiscal conservatism, limited government, and strong national defense. The 34 currently endorsed candidates (6 Senate; 28 House) represent all services and a broad geography, and have been well vetted.

Any reader who wants to help can do so with a couple of clicks and a VISA card.

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This week's video is Congressman Trey Gowdy's interrogation of former JCS Chair Admiral Mullen's management of the Benghazi whitewash.

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As a bonus, for an excellent recap of the potential 2016 Republican presidential nominees, see this article by Larry Sabato and Kyle Kondrik. The one thing to add is that if Hillary is the Democratic nominee Jeb Bush loses his largest negative.

March 06, 2014

You've got to suspect that the tide is turning when the Washington Post's editorial board titles an editorial "President Obama's foreign policy is based on fantasy", and concludes that "military strength, trustworthiness as an ally, staying power in difficult corners of the world such as Afghanistan — these still matter, much as we might wish they did not." There are no Ukranian names on the masthead - a broader realization is dawning.

The central problem with President Obama's foreign policy (as developed with Hillary Clinton) is that the people of other countries - friends and adversaries both - have learned that Barack Obama speaks in lofty terms in encouraging others to confront dictators and foreign powers, but that he cannot be counted on in the fight. The mismatch has been a major component of the failure of the Arab Spring, the agony in Syria, and now the break-up of the Ukraine. This is schoolyard stuff where the bullies quickly learn when they must modify their behavior and when it is safe to ignore unenforced warnings. Those watching in Asia will make an informed calculation as they face Chinese expansion.

President Obama entered office with grossly outsized expectations: his 2008 Berlin speech with its "moment to give our children back their future", his 2009 "New Beginning" Cairo speech, his 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for oratory. Much of his posture was for domestic political consumption as the anti-Bush, without any specific commitments. Optimism was high, contributing to the Arab Spring concept that the solution to religious radicalism lay in large part in a transition to free societies, the assumption being that the secularists featured on CNN would overwhelm the religious conservatives much as the youth of central Europe had overwhelmed the atrophied Soviet system in the Reagan era. Deflation was inevitable without American support at key symbolic moments.

At the start of his presidency Obama made it clear that he wasn't bound by Bush's commitments - abandon the Sunni tribal leaders who had helped end the Iraq civil war; re-set the relation with Russia by abandoning the Poles and Czechs who had committed to missile defense programs. If Bush supported Musharif in Pakistan, Obama cut him off. If Bush supported free trade agreements in Latin America, Obama let them languish. What other countries saw as American commitments were just "Bush commitments." Some of that is natural for a new president, but it has become clear that foreign leaders must not assume that American commitments exist beyond administrations. This will be a lasting problem.

The pattern of encouragement and abandonment solely within the Obama era began with the Iranian crackdown on its Green Movement in 2009 and the December 2011 revolution in Tunisia. The "call us when it's over" approach continued in Yemen, Egypt (twice), and - except for a brief interlude when we were dragged in by the Europeans - in Libya. Finally the "Assad must go" proclamation and red lines in Syria gave way to a still expanding civil war with over 140,000 killed, millions of refugees, and a magnet and training ground for thousands of foreign jihadists. The consistent pattern: good intentions; encouragement of secularists; no support; bad results.

With this lead-up, the Ukraine crisis should come as no surprise. Since the 2005 Orange Revolution represented a "seismic shift Westward", there has been a tenuous balance between the Ukranians who lost millions to Stalin's agricultural collectivization and the Russians who for centuries have seen Sevastopol as their key to warm water commercial and military access. (The real shame is that Crimea went to Ukraine rather than Russia when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991.) In a classic miscalculation, the US and Europe upset the balance in November by encouraging the Ukranian leadership to shift trade ties from Moscow to western Europe, dangling the eventual possibility of joining the European Union. The Russian response was predictable - a $15 billion aid package accepted by the popularly elected president, demonstrations by western-oriented Ukranians encouraged by the Europeans and the United States, escape to Russia by President Yanukovych, effective seizure of Crimea by the Russians, and a stand-off between Russia and Ukraine over the eastern protion of the country. Kissinger or Condi Rice would have understood; Obama's team does not. After some huffing and puffing we will again have encouragement and abandonment.

The broader problem is that adversaries and allies alike knows that we are stuck leaderless for three more years. In that time we need to deal with Iran's nuclear threat, China's expansionism in the South China Sea, and crises yet unknown. Nature abhors a vacuum.

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This week's bonus video is a series of interviews with Democratic National Committee members addressing Hillary Clinton's accomplishments as Secretary of State.

February 27, 2014

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel's Defense Department budget tells us all what we knew - America's reduced role on the world geopolitical stage extends far beyond the mere withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan; it includes a conscious plan to reduce our capabilities to project force around the world. It is a plan driven both by the anti-imperialism of President Obama and by the budgetary zeal of Republicans in Congress. And military resources stand to become less as other priorities dominate future federal budgets.

First, some thoughts on Secretary Hegel's budget proposal.

- At $496 billion, it reflects a $30 billion reduction from the FY2014 level. It reduces the active duty military by 13% and reserves by 5%, reducing the level of Army troops from 520,000 to some 450,000 as some 25,000 to 35,000 American military are withdrawn from Afghanistan.

- It reflects many difficult decisions which will be argued out in Congress: the elimination of the Air Force's A-10 Warthog close air support program; a major downsizing of the Navy's fleet of ships for shallow water combat; another round of Base Reduction and Closure cuts; the (long overdue) elimination of U-2 reconnaisance aircraft in favor of drones and satellites; reductions in the state National Guard forces.

- In dollar terms the budget is decreasing from some $700 billion just four years ago, the great majority being a drop of $150 billion in Iraq/Afghanistan costs. Military spending as a per cent of GDP declined from about 7% in the 1980's to under 4% in 2000, then increased to about 6% after 9/11 and is now headed back toward the 4% level.

- In global terms, US military spending is about 35% of the world's total, but its relative magnitude is declining as China (and to a lesser estent Russia) expands, exceeding the combined total of Germany, Britain, and France in 2015.

- Longer term, as Obamacare and Social Security costs grow faster than inflation, the financial squeeze will only get worse - particularly as interest rates on the $17 trillion debt return to a more normal 3 to 5 %.

The striking domestic political moment was the 2012 vote for "sequestraton" budget cuts for 2013-2021 which were split evenly between defense and non-defense discretionary spending. To the surprise of liberals who had expected Republicans to cave in, the Tea Party drive for fiscal restraint prevailed despite the impact on the defense establishment. Further, the Murray budget agreement brokered in December retained most of the defense sequestration cuts and set a target in line with Secretary Hagel's $496 billion. There was a squeal about cuts to veteran pensions, but the big conservative criticism was that budgets - including the military - were not cut enough.

Outgoing Secretary of Defense Gates' assessment that President Obama had never believed in the mission in Afghanistan, trusted our military leaders, or respected Harmid Karzai as an ally while he sent thousands of soldiers to be killed reflects what was essentially a domestic political calculation. Couple that with the indifferent attitude toward comrades under attack expressed at Benghazi, cheating on proficiency exams by Air Force nuclear missile crews, and refusal to institute an effective system for dealing with thousands of sexual assaults annually, recruitment and morale are seriously at risk.

At least for the duration of the Obama presidency it seems inevitable that we will rely on oratory as the Russians, Chinese, and Iranians continue on their expansionist paths and the jihadists gain force in Syria, Yemen, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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This week's short video is of the Crimean Peninsula, a portion of Ukraine with a high Russian population and home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Following Russia's 2008 invasian of the nearby country of Georgia, it would not be surprising if this strategic piece of Ukraine were re-taken by Putin's Russia.

February 06, 2014

The most important news in the past week was not the humiliation of Peyton Manning, the arrest of a leading Bitcoin entrepreneur, or the drug death of another Hollywood celebrity; it was not even the Congressional Budget Office revelation that Obamacare will cost over 2,000,000 jobs. It was the break between al Queda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Let's explain:

The act itself was simple. Last April the leader of the Iraq-based ISIL, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, decided to expand his insurgency operations from western Iraq and join the growing civil war in Syria. The problem was that there was another al Queda affiliate, the Nusra Front, already operating in Syria as part of the chaotic anti-Assad coalition. Al Queda's leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, told ISIS that their franchise territory was limited to Iraq, but Abu Bakr ignored the instructions, tried unsuccessfully to take control of the Nusra Front, was a successful recruiter of foreign fighters in Syria, and had some striking military successes. On Monday Zawahiri had had enough and excommunicated Abu Bakr's organization in favor of the Nusra Front.

This is a disagreement about personalities and tactics rather than strategic objectives. Both Sunni groups are committed to the overthrow of Bashir Assad's Shia Allawite regime. Both groups seek to establish a fundamentalist Islamic state in the center of what was once the center of the Sunni Muslim Caliphate. (Damascus was the capital of the Umuyyad dynasty from 661 to 750; Baghdad was the capital of the Abbasid dynasty from 750 to 1258.) Tactically, al Queda and their franchise Nusra Front are willing to work with a broader coalition to remove Assad while seeking popular support; abu Bakr is committed to using suicide bombers, foreign fighters, and the intimidation of civilians that have marked the rebellion in Iraq. Al Queda is the modarate.

The rise of ISIL should be viewed in the broader Middle East context. The Levant refers to the general area along the Mediterranean between Turkey and Egypt - today's Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine. The western reaches of ISIL's current operations include not only Syria, but also Lebanon where they have been attacking the Shia militia Hezbollah and a local jihadist has established an ISIL branch. Jordanian and Palestinian leaders are keeping their heads down, fearing ISIL more than Assad. The Syrian civil war has also been spreading back eastward into bordering Iraq, where the Sunni population has been enflamed by the arrest of prominent Sunni leaders by the Shia-dominated government of Kamal al-Maliki. ISIL-led fighters have recently captured Ramadi and Falluja and are becoming more aggressive in Baghdad, as the Obama administration has been searching for a way to recover the stability which has been lost since we withdrew in December 2011.

This expanding Syrian civil war provides some lessons from the Obama/Clinton Middle East policy that should guide the Obama/Kerry team if policy can trump politics:

- The retention of a small NATO force in Iraq could have mediated between the Shia Malaki government and the Sunni leaders in western Iraq, precluding the rise of the al Queda ISIL franchise. We are faced with a similar question in Afghanistan where a small NATO presence would also enable the maintenance of a level of engagement against al Queda's headquarters in Pakistan. We should not make the same mistake twice.

- The administration's domestic political message prior to Benghazi - that the killing of bin Laden and many of his top lieutenants had effectrively ended the jihadist threat - was clearly wrong. This is the answer to Hillary's "what difference does it make?" rant: the Benghazi attack was not just some guys out for a walk; the jihadists are alive and well and regrouping. Our friends in the region are at severe risk if we do not recognize the escalating threat and continue to treat military and intelligence capabilities focused on the jihadist threat as a high priority.

- Our dithering inaction in Syria - not arming the pro-west opposition early on - was a mistake which led to not only a protractred civil war with over 130,000 killed, but also to a potential jihadist sanctuary, not in the mountains of Afghanistan, but in the center of the old Muslim empire. That cannot be allowed to happen.

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This week's video is a Weather Channel explanation of why global warming is responsible for this season's extremely cold winter. Perhaps next month they can explain the record expansion of ice coverage at the South Pole.

January 09, 2014

Over the holidays there were many opportunities - with kids, friends' kids, and even grandkids - to reflect on the differences of political views between generations. Winston Churchill's famous aphorism - "Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains." - sheds some light, but there is more going on here. Three points:

In one gathering where a group of San Francisco 20 to 35 year olds were asked to explain their generation's perspectives, the themes were the technological obsolescence of their elders, universal support for the usual "social justice causes" (gay marriage, equal rights for women, help for the homeless), and their personal need to focus on careers rather than politics. Most disappointing, on the technology question the concept of content seems less important than the tools that are used. Perhaps there is a Marshall McLuhan "the medium is the message" thought here - with two inch by three inch iPhone screens and 144 character tweets it is hard to get into nuance, much less conflicting opinions. One old fogey's opinion.

The broader question of generational differences includes Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1966) versus Generation X (about 1966 to 1985) and Generation Y/ Millenials (about 1985 to 2005), but should really begin with the World War II generation to understand how relatively trivial the later issues and accomplishments are.

- The world as we know it was set between 1941 and 1955 by a very serious generation led by visionaries. The defeat of Hitler and Tojo; the containment of Stalin and Mao. (Visit Auschwitz or read Yevtushenko's poetry about the Russian gulag if you can contemplate alternate histories.) The peaceful reconstruction of Germany and Japan. The establishment of the UN, NATO, SEATO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund. The GI Bill, the interstate highway system, the rise of the middle class. I like Ike.

- The Boomers had great social upheaval fueled by opposition to the Viet Nam draft, the birth control pill, and drugs, and including the Kennedy, Kennedy, and King assasinations. Serious stuff; less serious than the 40s, but the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 could have been much worse. By the end of Reagan's time the international game was won and the nuclear Doomsday Clock started moving backwards. The country prospered as the dominant global economic, military, and cultural power.

- The period of Gen X coming of political age has a milestone of 9/11 2001 and its aftermath in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the NSA as well as a general drift to the left, eventually countered by the Tea Party. Big Government has continued to get bigger - Medicare Part B; Obamacare; EPA - with a two term big government Republican president followed by a two term bigger government Democrat.

So, the question is the attitude of the Gen Y / Millenials as they achieve political maturity. Ultimately it is not about tweets and Facebook versus Pinterest or Instagram, it is about the major events shaping the world as they start to pay attention - events that transcend the editorial board at the New York Times and the writers on the Daily Show. As a start they helped elect an African American president - any African American president. Here are a few others:

- The reemergence of the thousand year old Sunni-Shia schism in the Muslim world as the US withdraws from a leadership role in the region. Maybe some Millenials won't care since we will be much less oil dependant, but the globe continues to shrink and the reduced American stature will eventually affect our allies and our commerce. And a Persian - Arab nuclear arms race will demand attention.

- The painfully obvious fact that with Obamacare the federal government has exceeded its ability to effectively manage, whatever one's humanistic inclinations. In time, it won't be about the web site or even the president's lies - it will be about an understanding of the limited capabilities of government.

- In all eras, young people like liberty, and the "out of control" NSA of the last decade has to be a major offense - all the worse because it is an abuse of their technology and adversely affects the global attractiveness of American technology leaders.

- The unemployment scars of the Bush/Obama economy will not be as deep as those of the Great Depression, but the 10 million youths unable to find work will definitely favor policies fueling economic growth. And they will eventually feel the burden of the $17 trillion debt that we are bequeathing them.

- Perhaps most pervasive is the cynicism spawned by an incompetent president who lied to get his signature legislation passed, is bathed in cronyism, and is not interested in actually governing.

It is so clear that the next generation should be conservatives. We just need to figure out how to explain it to them. Now, how does that hashtag thing work?

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This week's video is Chris Cristie's response to his "Bridgegate" scandal. While ugly, his press conference offers a sharp contrast to President Obama's response to Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS scandal, the NSA spying scandal, and numberous other "the president didn't know" incidents.

September 19, 2013

This is speculation. Generally, one of the benefits of writing at RightinSanFrancisco.com is the ability to embed authoritative links - to polls, to news articles, to expert analysis. This week there are no links, just speculation.

The premise: President Obama understood that he'd been badly thrashed by Vladimir Putin and he reached out to the one resource who could match the Russian's political cunning and ruthlessness - the former House Speaker who had delivered Obamacare for him in 2009. They've been out of touch for a few years; now they need each other.

Her advice:

1. Foreign policy is different from domestic politics. Flowery speeches and a pliant media don't matter and your inner circle looks like a bunch of amateurs. Stay with what you are good at.

2. The minority leader cannot deliver the House Democrats for a strike on Syria; even core Bay Area supporters like Anna Eshoo and George Miller are publicly against their president. With isolationist Republicans and those who just want Obama to be taken down there is no way to get a House majority to support the proposed strike - and there won't be a next time. Mutter something about presidential perogatives, but don't push it - a future president will be a Republican and your base doesn't want her to be bombing somewhere without their permission.

3. A defeat in the House would be a disaster. Pushing 30 or 40 Democrats to support their president when a strong majority of the public opposed his Syria policy would invite a repeat of 2010 when Democrats lost 63 seats and the Speakership. Grab Putin's lifeboat, whatever it costs.

4. The American public has a short attention span. They've largely forgotten about Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups, and the ongoing NSA revelations. Don't worry about Fox and Darrell Issa. See what the New York Times is writing about - but don't read that ingrate Maureen Dowd's columns. She didn't get the memo.

5. Spin a yarn that the public will want to buy. Tell them that you really came up with this idea for Assad to give up his chemical weapons in a 20 minute conversation with Putin at the G20 meeting, that it was your insistence on a military strike that got the Russians and Assad to the table, that anything you agree to must be complete and verifyable, that you've made the world safer from future use of chemical weapons, that Iran recognized your steely resolve. People will want to believe that their president is up to the task, and your faithful need something to hang on to.

6. Let Kerry take it from here. He loves the spotlight, just don't let him commit to anything that will cause a problem in the next six months - or maybe until after November 2014. Get an inventory; let the UN discuss it; agree that the weapons will be dealt with sometime next year. Just no milestones.

7. Oh, and you've got to give something to your liberal base that is feeling abandoned. Maybe give the Federal Reserve Chairman gig to Janet Yellen instead of that misogynistic Clinton lackey Larry Summers. And lets really go for it: appoint Barbara Lee, the most liberal anti-war member of the House as your representative to the UN General Assembly. She and UN Ambassador Samantha Powers, now that would send a message to the world.

Bullet dodged. On to the budget, the debt limit, and Obamacare. As Hillary would say, "What difference does it really make?"

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To provide a bit of balance, this week's video shows the state of the Obama presidency on late night television.

September 12, 2013

Like "nature or nurture" in child rearing, historians can argue about the importance of the individual in the rise and fall of nations - the Mongols without Genghis Khan; the ancient Persians without Cyrus; the Romans without Julius Ceasar; Germany without Hitler; England without Winston Churchill. Vladimir Putin has benefited from vast energy resources, a weak Europe, and a weaker Barack Obama, but he has certainly brought Mother Russia back from the chaos and international irrelevance bequeathed to him by Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin.

Understanding the new Syrian setting requires understanding what Putin wants.

1. Russia will be able to demonstrate to its neighbors and the Middle East that it shares the world stage with the United States - "its equal in power and its superior in cunning and diplomacy" as George Friedman of Stratfor describes the positioning. Coupled with the NSA/Edward Snowden fiasco, Putin is on a roll and the countries that once made up the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies are recalibrating their foreign policies.

2. Russia has its own problem with Islamist extremists, having fought two brutal wars in Chechnya in the 90s and endured subsequent terrorist attacks at a school in in Beslan and various sites in Moscow as well as lingering unrest in Dagestan, South Ossetia, and parts of Georgia. The last thing that Putin, who himelf was directly involved in the the Caucasus in his KGB days, wants is for Islamist radicals in the Caucasus to gain access to chemical weapons from Syria.

3. Centuries of Russian geopolitics have involved a reach for warm water ports, with the Black Sea Fleet bottled up at the Dardanelles by Turkey. The Russian navy enjoys a small base at Tartus, Syria where they can perform replenishment and minor repair of ships in the Mediterranean. The alliance has been strong since the 70s, even as Russia withdrew from most foreign facilities with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

What we want is much less clear. In his September 10 speech, President Obama stressed the need to punish Assad for his use of chemical weapons, but stressed that the strike would be what John Kerry called "unbelievably small", and would not involve "boots on the ground", open ended commitments, or extended air and missile efforts like those in Kosovo or Libya. He also left out specific American objectives and strategies for Syria, or a timeline for implementing Putin's plan or taking any action.

Instead, the White House grabbed the accidental opportunity to back away from doing anything, claiming that Putin had put the proposal forward and now "owns it". So now Kerry is off to Geneva to work out the details: will a UN resolution threaten force if Assad does not comply? (Russia says "no"); what is the timeline for gaining control and destroying Assad's weapons?; how will ongoing compliance be verified? In the meantime, Russia is continuing its extensive supply of weapons to the Assad regime, aid to the rebels remains largely on hold, and the weight of force on the battlefield remains increasingly in Assad's favor.

If we had a Putin - or a Kissinger or a Reagan - there might be a deal which would result in a verifiable elimination of Assad's chemical weapons, a long term plan to support the moderate rebels to the point where they supplant the radical Islamists, and a guarantee to Putin that he could keep his naval base in a neutral Syria. Unfortunately we have a second Jimmy Carter, and the world will get to watch the Russians prop Assad up while the Obama administration continues its global march to the rear.

For those seeking a ray of optimism, if Russia could recover from the damage done by Gorbochev and Yeltsin, the United States - with our vastly greater economy and military might - can eventually recover from the damage being done by Barack Obama.

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This week's video is a smaller 9/11 version of the annual Memorial Day Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally in Washington D.C. For some reason, the leaders could not get a permit while the American Muslim Political Action Committee did get one from the National Park Service for their 9/11 "Million Muslim March" which drew a few dozen participants to the Mall. (For younger generations, "Rolling Thunder" was the name for the air campaign over North Vietnam - a reflection of the politics of the Harley crowd.)

September 05, 2013

Getting past the politics - both domestic and international - almost all of the discussion about Syria in Congress and the media is about tactics. Outside of the context of a broad and consistent strategy tactics are futile. It is no wonder that people really don't have an answer as to whether a token strike should take place; it is no wonder that liberals like Pelosi run automatically to support their president and conservatives like Representative Peter King of New York do the opposite. Arguments about tactics to no particular purpose devolve to petty partisan squabbles.

Even the question of how the Congress should be engaged is misdirected. The War Powers Act of 1973 - passed over President Nixon's veto - struck a careful balance between the President and the Congress. Specifically, the Act says:

"The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to:

(1) a declaration of war,

(2) a specific statutory authorization, or

(3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces."

The President is obligated to notify Congress within 48 hours of taking military action and, absent the above criteria, limits such action to 60 days with an additional 30 days for withdrawal. We live in an age where prompt action is sometimes needed, but our policies require Congressional approval even if Clinton in Kosovo and Obama in Libya argued that the Act represented an unconstitutional restriction of Presidential power.

We have no declaration of war or national emergency, so it would seem that a specific statutory authorization is needed - the whim of Samantha Powers or Susan Rice being inadequate to the purpose. Fortunately, beyond the tactical "what", the range of characters in Congress - the liberal Democrats (ex Pelosi), the isolationist Republicans, the anti-Obamites - would like to know what we hope to achieve and how that fits into a broader picture. Actually, the American people and our global allies would like to know.

Let's dream for a moment about an alternative universe where the President had a grand vision of the Middle East - as Kissinger did for China - and saw America as a benign force capable of helping our allies achieve their objectives.

- Iraq would have been the bulwark against Shiite Iran. (Premise: the big picture is that the Shia -Sunni division is akin to the European Catholic-Protestant split of 500 years ago, with a Persian - Arab/Turk overlay.) But that is crying over spilled milk; Obama withdrew.

- We would jointly work with our Sunni friends in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt to reduce Shiite Iran's influence in the Arab world - opposing Hezbollah and Syria. This implies regime change for the Allawite Assad.

- The quid pro quo from our Sunni allies would be staunch opposition to (Sunni) Islamist radicals who would use violence to attack the West - and them.

Obama may get his permission to lob a few missiles at some Syrian military sites, accomplishing little. Married to a strategy of opposition to Iran with the correlary of working for the replacement of Assad with a moderate Sunni regime - even if it takes a couple more years - this would be a reasonable strategy. That Obama has promised military equipment to moderate rebels after the first gas attack without following through suggests that regime change has not been part of the strategy; maybe the decision to have the Pentagon rather than the CIA provide the arms suggests more than a tactical change. If so, it would be a nice gesture to tell Congress and the American people.

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For those few who are surprised by Obama's dithering on Syria, here's an update on the XL Pipeline, a project first proposed in 2008, whose approval or rejection is now projected to be delayed until at least the end of the year for the review of millions of pages of public testimony. Meanwhile, transportation has shifted to rail - which is more expensive and less invironmentally friendly.

August 29, 2013

Carl von Clausewitz, the great Prussian military theorist of the early 19th century who discussed war as being an extension of politics, also spoke of the "fog of war" - how in the face of incomplete, dubious, and often completely erroneous information and high levels of fear, doubt, and excitement it was necessary for alert commanders to make rapid decisions - both on the battlefield and at a strategic level where certainty was rare. Thus it is with Syria.

Let's try anyway.

There is a set of questions about the relative strengths and relationships of the participants - Assad's Alawites, the moderate Sunnis, the jihadist Sunnis, the neighboring countries,and the more distant patrons in Iran and Russia. This is very well discussed by the folks at the British newspaper The Telegraph, the intelligence web site Stratfor, and any number of other news sources. It is unlikely that the CIA can get a much clearer picture of the risks and likely outcomes than the well-motivated private citizen.

The most important question is not about them - it is about us. Why should we get involved? There are two types of answers.

1. It is morally wrong for us to stand by as over 100,000 people are killed and the Assad regime deploys gas warfare against its citizens. Within the administration there has been a divide between the pragmatists who see an unending list of tyrants and atrocities in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere and the idealists such as UN Ambassador Samantha Powers (who was vocally outspoken about the Clinton administration's slowness to act in the Balkans and failure to act at all in central Africa) and National Security Advisor Susan Rice (who was central to the Clinton administration's failure to stop mass genocide in Rwanda in the the 90's.) A strong majority of Americans would side with the pragmatists.

2. What is our national security interest?

- Credibility. Some 90,000 deaths ago Obama declared that Assad had to go. A year ago he declared chemical weapons a "red line". In June he declared a smaller use against insurgents to be cause for sending (yet to arrive) weapons to the rebels. John Kerry (perhaps bloviating beyond his authority in an effort to be the un-Hillary) declared Assad's use of chemical weapons to be "undeniable" and demanding of a response. Abject weakness will inevitably draw challenges elsewhere - perhaps with Iran's nuclear program; perhaps somewhere like Korea where our symbolic presence and nuclear umbrella have guaranteed peace for a half century. Two years of speeches without action have made belief in American commitments a real national security interest.

- Containment of the jihadists. For the past two years radical Islamists have been migrating to Syria and joining militias such as the al-Queda-allied Jabhat Nusra to the point that they may have become the most effective fighters against the Assad regime. Our failure to arm the pro-west moderates when they were in the ascendency 12 to 18 months ago was a lost opportunity which may be rectified over time, but the chaos that would follow the collapse of Assad's regime could easily result in at least large enclaves of radical anti-West Islamists and a sanctuary for al-Queda such as Afghanistan and Pakistan offered a generation ago. Until we can be confident that the moderates would dominate, Assad is preferable.

- Stability of our regional allies - Israel; Turkey; Saudi Arabia; Egypt. Each has its own considerations - suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; concern about the Kurds in northern Syria gaining independence and inflaming the Kurds in Turkey; Saudi opposition to both jihadist insurgents and Iran's Shia allies; Israel's value to Islamists as a rallying point. None of this is good. Assad has been a troublemaker in Lebanon, but otherwise he has been good for peace in the neighborhood.

The political setting is ugly. Obama will not have the support of the United Nations to enforce the international community's ban on use of chemical weapons; he will not have the support of the Arab League which he did have in Libya; he will not have the support of NATO which he has in Afghanistan; he is not inclined to ask for approval of Congress as required by the Constitution. He will not have the support of the American people.

What to do? Lob in a few missiles - enough to show that he cannot be trifled with, but not enough to weaken Assad's military. Perhaps ship a few of the promised munitions to the moderate Syrian opposition. Rely on the media and the public to move on to the budget fights and the baseball playoffs. Such is leadership in the era of Obama.

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This week's video contains the reflections of Republican Senator Tim Scott on Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech - he was available to speak on Fox since he - the only African American senator - was not invited to the celebration at the Washington Mall. An innocent oversight to be sure.

August 01, 2013

On July 24, 94 House Republicans and 111 House Democrats voted to de-fund the National Security Agency's collection of telephone records - "just metadata" in the administration''s vernacular. Republican and Democratic leadership and the Obama administration narrowly defeated the revolt, but the unquestioned prioritization of national security over individual liberty has ended.

The joining of Republican libertarians with Democratic liberals reflected a rapid and major shift in public attitudes with a Pew Research survey showing that, while a narrow majority still support the general NSA anti-terrorism effort, 56% do not think it is receiving adequte oversight and 70% believe that the information is being used for other purposes than fighting terrorism.

Just a decade ago Democrats were incensed that the Bush administration might abuse library card information. Now we are subjected almost daily to a new disclosure of information being collected by the Obama administration - domestic phone calls; e-mails; Facebook chats; ATM transactions. Next the Obamacare "data hubs" will be collecting extensive information on everybody's health records and finances (to validate insurance subsidies) with little control over who accesses the information.

A big part of the recent change in public attitude involves trust - or rather the legitimate lack of same. Whether President Obama is intimidated by the intelligence establishment or whether he just isn't much interested, the most that he has done is call for a "conversation" - as he did in the" vastly more important" Treyvon Martin case. Unfortunately for the NSA, their exposure comes on the heels of the disclosures of the IRS' illegal targeting of conservatives which clearly exposes the possibility of abuse - by any administration. And Director Clapper's lying to Congress about the existence of phone monitoring doesn't help. One doesn't have to be paranoid or a small government conservative to see our freedoms rapidly eroding.

Key players in this saga come from unexpected places:

- NSA contractor Edward Snowden is the prime mover. Unlike Bradley Manning, he did not expose individual intelligence sources, putting agents at risk and making CIA recruitment more difficult. Undoubtedly, he did provide our enemies with some roadmaps that make us less safe. In both the Bradeley and Snowden cases the intelligence community exhibited horrendous control over access to sensitive information, letting junior operatives have broad access and an ability to walk out the door. The perpetrators were who they were, but senior managers are really at fault.

- Former House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Sensenbrenner (R- Wisconsin), who has not been part of the conversation since he was termed out as committee chair, nearly swung the House vote when he declared that the NSA was operating beyond the limits of the Patriot Act, which he wrote.

- In the Senate, Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) seems poised to lead a Democratic challenge to the administration's assertions that all of the programs that the NSA wants are necessary, productive, and under proper controls.

From the past few week's cascade of revelations, the shape of the future reforms takes some shape:

1. A reform of the FISA court procedure is needed. Judges should not be unilaterally appointed by the Supreme Court Chief Justice without Senate approval. An adversary needs to be assigned to make the arguments against the propositions of the intelligence community rather than the current one-sided deliberation which results in virtually no turndowns. Approvals should be tied to specific threats rather than blanket data mining.

2. Greater transparency is required on the "rules of the road". If the boundaries of government monitoring are not known, many of us will assume the worst and abuse becomes much easier. Contrary to the claim of Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson) in "A Few Good Men", we can handle the truth, and the balance should not be the sole purview of the intelligence community.

3. There must be aqccountability for abuse. The Director of the NSA cannot lie to Congress. The leaders of the IRS cannot be allowed to target political opponents. The Mannings and Snowdens cannot be allowed to decide which oaths to violate and which laws to break. An incompetent administration cannot stand in the way of accountability.

These are hard questions and technoloy has changed the playing field. Without presidential engagement or help from the Attorney General it will be hard to get the controls right, but a bi-partisan Congressional push-back has begun in the "land of the free and the home of the brave."

July 04, 2013

It is hard to know which of four "continuing to unravel" subjects has been the most mismanaged, creating the most long term detriment to the United States:

1. The Middle East - Benghazi non-engagement (demonstrating the ability to attack Americans with impunity); meaningless ultimatums on Syria; Egyptian turmoil. We will never know what could have been done with the Arab Spring opportunity, but we do know the result of "leading from behind" for our friends and for our influence.

2. Obamacare - admission that mandated employer insurance is unworkable (at least until after the next election); costs for the healthy young more than doubling; large insurers refusing to participate in exchanges. Restructuring one sixth of our economy is way beyond the ability of Kathleen Sibelius - or any central bureaucracy.

3. The IRS - use of the tax collectors to intimidate political opponents. The first step toward recovery is admitting the problem, a step which the administration refuses to take despite the testimony of the Inspector General, knocking down the Left's claim that "progressive" groups were also targeted.

4. The NSA - tracking virtually all domestic telephone messages; monitoring extensive international e-mail traffic running through American servers; bugging of our allies at home and abroad; lying to Congress about surveillance. Much more is needed than demeaning Snowden as "just a 29-year old hacker".

Maybe a hostile Middle East doesn't matter too much to us. Obamacare promises to become increasingly unpopular, causing a few million extra unemployed and a few trillion dollars more of debt until the Republicans are strong enough to reform the reform. The IRS scandal is the most direct attack on our freedom; hopefully Darrell Issa will stay focused on the core issue.

My vote for the most lasting damage goes to the NSA fiasco, demonstrating the potential of the 21st Century police state, the lack of effective judicial / Congressional oversight, and the damage of an administration incapable and unwilling to have an honest discussion of the trade-offs with Americans and our foreign allies. Two aspects yet to develop:

- The first month's reaction to the Snowden disclosures had a tone of "Americans shouldn't worry; the really intrusive stuff is restricted to the foreigners." That should perhaps be expected from an administration which plays everything for domestic political gain, but - like with the extensive use of drones in Pakistan - Obama has demonstrated an insensitive arrogance guaranteed to turn foreign friends away and his Secretary of State would pass off bugging of 38 allied missions as "not unusual".

- The commercial implications are little mentioned. We own the internet, from the management of domain names, to the home of social media, to the production and operation of servers. Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo were initially vocal that they only provided information to NSA when required and the NSA's PRISM program was for foreign communications. One can bet that the next generation of the global internet will not be America-centric, regardless of where the technical innovation comes from.

Edward Klein's "The Amateur" nailed it. We are paying a huge price for putting a Chicago community organizer in charge of the world's greatest economic, military, and technological power. Some on the Right believe that Obama's damage is deliberate; a more charitable interpretation is insular incompetence.

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This week's video, courtesy of an alert California reader, gets us back to a bit of much-needed levity.

June 13, 2013

Only partisans and ideologues are not conflicted about the intelligence community's domestic spying program and the trade-off between security and liberty. Four basic questions deserve attention:

1. What is going on?

- The National Security Agency has been making a record of virtually all telephone calls in the United States - number, duration, origin and destination - in a program whose roots reach back to at least 2006. No listening in is allowed without further court authorization.

- In its PRISM program , which targets internet communication involving non-Americans reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States, the NSA gathers substantial information from the servers of Apple, AOL, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, PalTalk, Skype, Yahoo, and You Tube - much to the chagrin of the companies which fear for their customer relationships.

- In the past, and presumably ongoing, the NSA has obtained credit card information which shows vendors if not items - an abortion clinic, a mental health doctor, Rusty's Gun Shop or Kitty's Web Site for example.

- In (hopefully) separate silos the federal government has access to information on voting records (party registration; voting history); income and tax payments; and, increasingly, medical records, DNA, and miscellaneous other data elements.

- The NSA (which reports to Defense Department) has mushroomed since 9/11, now including a $860 million, 600,000 square foot data center in Fort Meade, Maryland and a soon-to be-opened $1.9 billion, even larger facility in Utah. A majority of the technical work has been outsourced to private contractors, with almost 500,000 contractors and 900,000 government employees having "Top Secret" clearances.

2. What is the legal standing?

- The longstanding tradition, molded by the Supreme Court, is that federal authorities have the right to monitor and record the outside of an envelope in the mail and the origin and destination of phone calls (but not the content) on the premise that the caller has voluntarily turned that information over to a third party - the phone company.

- The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978prescribes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign powers" and "agents of foreign powers" within the United States. Warrants from a secret court are required for surveillance of foreigners for over one year and for United States "persons" (citizens and lawful permanent resident aliens) for over 72 hours - but since 1979 only 11 of 33,900 requests have been denied.

- The Patriot Act of 2001, as modified in 2006 and 2011, broke down the wall between criminal investigations and foreign intelligence activities and removed the requirement that surveillance targets be non-US citizens and an agent of a foreign power, while still attempting to protect citizens' constitutional rights.

The ACLU has challenged the application of the FISA and Patriot Acts, arguing that the information being collected does not have the required connection between the seized documents and a terrorism investigation. Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, the floor sponsor of the Patriot Act has made the same point to the Attorney General. For his part, the Attorney General has refused to share with Congress the administration's legal interpretation of why what they are doing is within the laws.

3. Can we trust the government? Has this administration been guilty of political abuse by design, or by inability to control subordinates? What about future administrations?

- The most obvious chilling example of political activism by supposedly non-partrisan technocrats is the IRS scandal in which employees targeted Tea Party and other conservative organizations, with direct knowledge by Washington headquarters officials who denied to Congress under oath that there was such targeting despite their knowing otherwise.

- In a reflection of the President's attitude about honesty and transparency, Susan Rice has been rewarded for her lead role in telling politically-motivated known untruths about Benghazi by being named National Security Advisor.

- The Attorney General has been found in contempt of Congress for refusal to provide documents about Fast and Furious, has denied being aware of a months' long tapping of Associated Press phones done under warrant from his department, and denied ever hearing about prosecuting reporters shortly after signing a warrant naming a Fox News reporter as a "co-conspirator".

- In response to Senator Wyden's question, "does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" Director of National Intelligence Clapper replied under oath "No, sir" in what he later called the "least untruthful manner".

- As an indicator of who might be subject to surveillance, Janet Napolitano's Department of Homeland Security has warned that acts of domestic terrorism could come from unnamed "rightwing extremists" concerned about illegal immigration, abortion, increasing federal power and restrictions on firearms -- and singled out returning war veterans as susceptible to recruitment. Conversely, the killing of 13 at Fort Hood by a Muslim Army major shouting "God is Great" was referred to as an act of "workplace violence."

And that's just the recent stuff. Whether due to political agendas, incompetent management, or just a group of bad personnel selections this reflects reality and one needs to assume that the massive NSA database will eventually fall to the same temptations.

4. What can be done?

With NSA claiming success in foiling a dozen plots - some with questionable hyperbole, most without any real disclosure; a majority of citizens willing to prioritize safety; and computer power growing exponentially, the government can keep an individual dossier on everybody - where they live, their financial and health records, groups they belong to, their DNA, their Internet browzing habits, their social media friends, their school records; and on and on.

This is probably a uniquely good time to have the discussion about what this means for a free people:

- With a president who has been cornered into accepting it;

- With a public who understands that government power will be abused for political gain or through incompetence;

- With a press that is smarting from its own surveillance;

- With conservatives (national security as well as libertarians) who would like to limit Obama's power.

Lets hope that we have a long enough attention span to deal with the fundamental question of how much liberty we maintain and what oversight there is to limit the executive branch.

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This week's video is Rand Paul's reaction to the NSA leaker - from the Senator who is the leading libertarian legislator and presidential aspirant. Commenters seem to forget that our legal system has two phases - is he guilty?; what is an appropriate punishment? It is intellectually difficult and bad for civil order to not answer the first in the affirmative.

May 30, 2013

Sometimes the law is simple; at other times it involves seemingly irreconcilable conflicts between first principles such as national security and freedom of the press. In those circumstances it is critical that the public trust the nation's chief law enforcement officer as being able to place principle above politics. Sometimes the Attorney General has risen to the occasion - Nixon's Elliot Richardson refusing to fire the Watergate special prosecutor; George W. Bush's John Ashcroft ruling that aspects of the response to 9/11 were illegal; sometimes they have not - Web Hubbell, Bill Clinton's Deputy Attorney General and "fixer".

How about Eric Holder?

- The record was suspect from the beginning. As Assistant Attorney General under Clinton he facilitated the pardon of Marc Rich, a tax evasion fugitive and large Clinton donor, and the commutation of the sentences of violent Puerto Rican secessionists.

- His first major conflict with the Republican House came with Fast and Furious, the ill fated scheme to sell guns to intermediaries in an effort to track down Mexican cartels - and in the view of some on the Right, to create a call for tighter gun controls. Holder denied under oath knowing about the operation despite it being included in regular briefings; Justice published, then withdrew a letter denying the existance of program; Holder was found in contempt of Congress for refusing to provide required documents showing high level awareness prior to the denial letter; the White House claimed executive privilege for their communications on the scandal. The union for border patrol agents as well as hundreds of politicians called for Holder's resignation, but the stonewall worked. See no evil.

- The Associated Press scandal - in which Holder's Justice Department secretly subpoenaed the phone records for 20 phone lines over a period of two months in 2012 in an effort to find the source of leaks relative to foiled bomb plot which originated in Yemen. The unusually broad scope of the investigation and it's secrecy raised cries from the media who had been largely quiet about several prior prosecutions of leaks which compromised national security operations such as the Stuxnet operation on Iranian nuclear centrifuges. Holder claims no involvement (or "heads up" to the White House), having recused himelf because he was a "fact witness" in the investigation despite there being no record of a recusal. Hear no evil.

- The Fox News scandal - in which Holder went a step further, shopping for a judge to issue a secret search warrant for the records of Fox reporter James Rosen including him as a potential co-conspirator for soliciting a leak about North Korean nuclear efforts, thenclaiming under oath that prosecution of reporters for disclosing confidential information "is not something I've ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy." (Since its passage in 1917, the Espionage Act has generally been used to prosecute leakers, but not the press.) Speak no evil.

Since the Wikileaks release of millions of diplomatic cables, military plans, and intelligence assessments it is hard to keep smaller, more focused disclosures in perspective. Certainly the ability of US diplomats to conduct discrete negotiations and the CIA's ability to recruit foreign sources have been significantly compromised. To their credit, the administration has prosecuted Private Bradley Manning, the chief leaker. In a parallel vein, recent disclosures of Chinese cyber-theft of a broad array of weapons systems designs suggests that the door is wide open. This lack of ability to protect legitimate secrets cannot be allowed to stand, and the Obama administration's effort to hold leakers accountable and to deter future leaks is commendable - notwithstanding Senate Intelligence Chair Feinstein's 2012 complaint that many politically helpful leaks came from the White House.

This should not be a political subject. Unfortunately this Attorney General has demonstrated that he does not possess the personal integrity and credibility to lead the necessary discussion. His mangled charm offensive of "off the record" discussions with friendly media cannot overcome the fact that he has lied to Congress and is unable to manage the power of his office.

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This week's video is a discussion by Juan Williams of Fox as to why the right person to investigate Eric Holder is ... drumroll ... Eric Holder.

April 04, 2013

One could make the case - and Dinesh D'Souza has quite convincingly - that President Obama's policies for much of the world reflect the anti-imperial activism of his Kenyan father and, to a lesser extent, his Indonesian stepfather. Thus, his non-response to the Arab Spring in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria. Thus his retreat from Iraq without leaving any forces behind. Thus his leaving the fight against Al Queda in North Africa to the French. Thus his ineffectual and ambivalent treatment of the war which he escalated in Afghanistan. Among the progressives on the left and many libertarians on the right, this is OK. There is too much global discord for us to settle it all.

But what about the "leading from behind" strategy in the rest of the world? What will eight years of President Obama do to the military and economic Pax Americana that has existed since 1945? There are plenty of clues:

- The decennial change of leadership in China has received little fanfare in the United States, but it no accident that the first foreign trip of new President Xi Jinping was to Moscow. Or that China is beginning efforts with Australia, Brazil, Russia, and Iran to replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency.

- From Vladimir Putin's perspective, the Eurozone's confiscation of Russian deposits in Cyprus, with the blessing of the American-led International Monetary Fund, stimulates a rethinking about Russia's place in the world at a time when the Obama administration has demonstrated its "flexibility" by cancelling the planned Eastern Europe missile defense shield - with no quid pro quo. The Russians have reason to be offended, and latitude to respond.

- And what of the remaining two members of George W Bush's "axis of evil"? North Korea and Iran barrel ahead on their paths to become realistic nuclear threats. Realizing that the American "nuclear shield" may no longer be operable, Japan and South Korea are taking first steps to develop their own deterrents. Without a credible assurance of American protection, the same will undoubtedly happen in the Sunni world once Iran crosses the threshold.

It's not a pretty picture. Maybe the world will move slowly or the House and Senate will be able to exert real pressure on President Obama's military and foreign policies. Maybe there is enough financial strength in the European and American economic systems to retain primacy for a decade or two. But don't look to Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Chuck Hegel to usher in a new era of American global leadership. Quite the opposite.

March 14, 2013

A president has to trust the common sense of the American people. On the small stuff the people, wanting to have faith in the president, will give him wide berth. (Let him flit around on Air Force One while shutting down White House tours.) On the middle stuff he can fool most of the people enough of the time. (Of course he will address spending just as soon as he gets the fat cats to pay their fair share in taxes.) But on the big stuff he can't believe that, as Jack Nicholson's Col Jessup yells in A Few Good Men, "You can't handle the truth." Rand Paul believes that we can.

The conflict between national security and individual liberty in a post-911 world is complicated. People of good will on the left and on the right will disagree on much, but the zealots of Code Pink agree with the zealots of the libertarian movement that we need to discuss the limits of government power. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) don't want the discussion; Ron Wyden (D-OR), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Mike Lee (R-UT) do.

Unfortunately, Barack Obama is with McCain - perhaps because he is tangled up ideologically; perhaps because he enjoys having few limits on his power; perhaps because he doesn't think in terms of how the Constitution set up the government in the first place. Twelve years after the attacks in New York and Washington, we have:

- A president who led the criticism of his predecessor's use of "enhanced interrogation technques" refusing to share with the Senate Intelligence Committee the legal rationale supporting the killing of Americans;

- An administration which insists on calling the murder of 13 people at Fort Hood by Major Hassan an "act of workplace violence";

- An administration which is told that it cannot close the detention facility at Guantanamo, and doesn't seem to understand (or accept) the difference between civilian and military judicial systems;

- A security establishment which continues to blur the distinction between the role of the CIA and the role of the military in fighting foreign wars;

- A Nobel Peace Prize winning president who maintains a central personal role in deciding what targets to approve for drone strikes, without a public discussion of criteria or any judicial review;

- The establishment of a cybersecurity mission at the Pentagon with vast powers to monitor civilian travel, purchasing, reading, and assembly patterns with hardly a peep from the folks who went ballistic about Dick Cheney's purported interest in library records.

- The New York Times finally reporting on the killing of not only American-born Al Queda leader Anwar al Awlaki, but also his 16 year old son and another American whose offense was purely in the propaganda realm.

Out on the right are the conspiracy theorists who are still incited by the government's ham-handed assaults on a white separatist family at Ruby Ridge, Idaho in 1992 and the Branch Davidian compound in Waco in 1993, and the Second Amendment advocates who see a need for militias to protect ourselves from King George III. That thread is not healthy for democracy, but it is fed by Obama's leftist policies and his refusal to acknowledge any limits on government power.

Eric Holder's answer to the question before Paul's filibuster - does the president have the authority to kill Americans on American soil without due process and in the absence of an imminent threat?: "It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States." And after the filibuster, a petulant Holder wrote "The answer to that question is no."

A small victory for liberty. Thank you Senator Paul.

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This week's video is a brief year-old exchange about the killing of Americans between Jake Tapper of CNN and President Obama's deliberate know nothing press secretary.

February 28, 2013

Every year or so I write a piece that offends many of my friends. This is the one for 2013. We do not need to spend nearly as much on our military as the rest of the world combined, and sequestration seems to be the only way to tame the beast.

Before talking about how much we need, lets put aside the question of what we do with the military and state department that we have. If this were thrust of the discussion, I wouldn't be offending my friends:

- Obama withdrew from Iraq and did not make an effort to leave a small peace keeping force behind. He will also abandon whatever progress has been made in his greatly expanded war in Afghanistan. They will have to fend for themselves.

- Obama has chosen to not get involved in the messy side of the Arab Spring - Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria. They will have to fend for themselves.

- Obama is doing little to reassure our friends in Japan and South Korea about North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. They will have to fend for themselves.

- Obama is doing little to reassure our friends in Israel and Saudi Arabia about Iran's nuclear program. They will eventually have to fend for themselves.

- Obama is doing little to reassure our friends in Poland and the Czech Republic about our missile defense program for them, now that Obama has been reelected and has "more flexibility". They will have to fend for themselves.

- Obama has chosen a Secretary of Defense who shares his vision for a reduced military which will be less involved in the world. Senators fend for Senators.

Lets also stipulate that Obama proposed the sequestration concept and, as Commander in Chief, has structured the implementation to inflict maximum pain and damage on the military with the expectation that conservatives would again cave in to give him tax increases without meaningful budget reductions. It would appear as if the House Republicans are finally saying "no mas", regardless of how many firemen, teachers, and soldiers Obama can line up behind him for his histrionic speeches. Good for them. The union will survive, and we may have finally turned the corner on our debt, which Chief of Staff Mullen famously called the greatest threat to our national security.

Now the hard stuff. We have the same military structure that was created in 1947. Ike warned about the "military-industrial complex" in 1952, and it is still out if full force in opposition to the sequester. Donald Rumsfeld tried to shift from aircraft carriers and new generations of Air Force fighters and Army tanks - getting more unconventional forces after 9/11, but not getting rid of the old stuff. Now the Pentagon has taken on a cyber-defense mission, but again hangs on to the past. We have a military that is a jobs plan (for the bloated corps of admirals and generals as well as the folks at Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and L3 Communications), not a defense plan.

For the optimists, maybe, just maybe, the House Republicans will have passed the tipping point, and - thinking of the warnings of Admiral Mullen, Ike, and Rummie - they will ask the staffers down in the bowels of the Pentagon and over at the think tanks to envision a military which lets us do what Obama chooses not to do, but doesn't cover simultaneous wars on three oceans and the plains of Poland, while obliterating Russia 10 times over.

That's a hope, but if the House has come far enough to accept military sequestration, maybe real change is possible.

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This week's video extends the White House's battle with Bob Woodward, in which he was threatened for detailing the facts of Obama's original proposal of the sequestration.

January 31, 2013

In his inaugural address President Obama included much that people want to believe, including: "This generation of Americans has been tested by crises that steeled our resolve and proved our resilience. A decade of war is now ending." Done with Bush's "bad war" in Iraq; ending Obama's inconsequential "good war" in Afghanistan. Smooth sailing ahead. Good enough to win reelection; freightening if he believes it.

Dot 1. The al Queda franchises are alive and well - in Afghanistan and Pakistan; in Yemen; in North Africa. Gone is the spiritual leader, but remaining is the virulent anti-West Islamism. The drone war continues, killing leaders when they can be found, civilians when they get in the way, and an occasional American traitor. Finding leaders to interrogate - forget it. Winning the hearts and minds of the populace - such a 70's concept.

Dot 2. NATO brought the Arab Spring to Libya - a war, whether Obama was willing to ask Congress for approval or not. One ugly dictator removed; chaos in its wake.

Dot 3. Libyan armaments make their way to Syria; former mercenaries make their way to Saharan Africa and make us learn a new set of place names - Gao, Bamako, Mopti - and learn where Timbuktu is. They join Islamist militias who conquor northern Mali and attack western interests in Algeria.

Dot 4. The French intervene to support African Union troops and save the government of Mali, a country of 14.5 million people with a territory almost twice the size of Texas. Europe fears an Afghanistan-like safe haven from which jihadist attacks can be launched. Obama rejects initial French calls for help with reconnaisance, air transport, and aerial refueling, but later relents as the French face little resistance. He agrees to base some American drones in neighboring Niger. Our allies need to rethink American support - in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

Dot 5. Our outgoing Secretary of State tells the Senate, "What difference does it make whether .... (her subordinates in Benghazi) were killed by a planned terrorist attack or a bunch of guys out for a walk." The New York Timescheers.

Dot 6. Looming sequestration threatens meat-axe cuts of $45 billion per year on top of planned reductions with the wind down of the Afghan war. Chuck Hagel is brought on as Secretary of Defense with the job of scaling back personnel, equipment, and missions.

Well, Hillary .... acknowledging the reality that virulent anti-West Islamism is thriving across a wide swath of territory makes a big difference to Europe, to our friends in the Middle East, and to us. We are, and will remain, the dominant global military power. We have the unique ability to support allies in places like Libya or Mali with intelligence (satellite; electronic), air transportation, aerial refueling, and materiel without risking American lives. If we believe that the decade of war is ending (never mind Iran and Syria), that it doesn't matter who we are facing in North Africa, and that the French and Africans can do it without us, we will all pay a heavy price in the future.

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As a change of pace, this week's video is a 24 minute tour of the international space station by a NASA astronaut.

Hillary has clearly learned from her husband that lying under oath is a bigger risk than any misdeeds of omission or comission. But maybe, just maybe, the House Republicans and a few reporters beyond Fox will stick with it until the questions get answered.

2. Were you personally aware of the department's security measures in Benghazi - the inadequate design of the consulate facility; the removal of the Libyan embassy's 16 member Site Security Team and three small emergency response teams; the removal of a quick-response transport aircraft; the absence of Marine guards and reliance on a Libyan militia for external security? Were you involved in any of these decisions?

3. If money is tight, why did you spend $750,000,000 to build a new embassy in Baghdad with a staff of 15,000?

During the September 11 attack:

1. What was the command structure for monitoring activity and directing responses during the seven-hour attack? Who were the senior officials involved from the White House, State, Defense, and the CIA? Did you have access to video from the on-site drone and ground surveillance cameras, telephone communications with the Ambassador and consular and CIA staff, and radio intercepts of the attackers?

2. Who determined the Rules of Engagement and what were they? Why did we not deploy the special operations team located in Italy? Was there a delay in authorizing the CIA contractors at the annex to assist in the defense of the consulate?

3. Did the desire to maintain a light footprint in the face of ongoing violent demonstrations across the region result in a decision to deny available assistance to the consulate?

After the attack:

1. With the breadth of information available during and immediately after the attack, why did the administration continue for a week to insist that the attack was a response to a video? Who was involved in the creation of this story?

The media has largely given Barack Obama a free ride because they hated Bush and loved him. With media attitudes toward Hillary being more mixed, perhaps a reporter or two will even ask these questions of the woman who once challenged Barack Obama's competence to respond to a 3 AM phone call. Or maybe Congressional Democrats will call her back to testify ... if everybody promises to not ask where President Obama was.

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This week's video is a seasonally-appropriate flashmob from the City of Brotherly Love where baseball fans boo the Seventh Inning Stretch.

September 20, 2012

Nothing is more central to the Obama foreign policy than his outreach to the Muslim world as reflected in his June 2009 Cairo speech. As is often the case, the speech was soaring. It reflected a great sensitivity to Muslim religion, culture, and history. It also leaned forward in criticizing the Bush policies - interrogation, Guantanamo, Iraq, Afghanistan. At various points it criticized Germany (the Holocaust), Spain (the Inquisition), and Israel (West Bank settlements). What it did not do was mention the positives of America's relation with the Muslim world - for example, it rightly praised Al Azhar and the University of Cairo, but made no mention of the prominent American University in Cairo. It did not offer concrete assistance, set goals or challenge the Muslim leadership.

So, three years later what do we know?

`1. Our friends cannot depend on our support.

- In Egypt we have abandoned not only Hosni Mubarak, but also the moderates as reflected in the military, the tourist industry, and the Coptic Christisan community. Obama doesn't know if Egypt - the most important state in the Arab world - is an ally.

- In Israel there is a break with the leadership, with Obama refusing to meet with Premier Netanyahu. All options for stopping Iran's march to nuclear weapons are on the table - where they will remain.

- Obama was silent while the Iranians put down pro-democracy demonstrators in 2009.

- He is again silent in 2012 when the Iranian-backed president of Syria slaughters 20,000 civilians seeking his removal.

- Allies such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates can only wonder what awaits them.

2. Our enemies see us in withdrawal and sense that they can attack with impunity.

- In Afghanistan the resurgent Taliban are conducting more brazen attacks on our troops who are hanging on until 2014. President Karzai is taking an increasingly independent posture, recognizing that his future does not rest with the United States.

- The animosity between the Muslim world and the West built up over centuries and cannot be solved in one term. With Obama's background, he is the best hope. But for some reason the Pew attitude surveys of Middle Eastern countries show a decline in positives for the United States since 2008 in every case.

- The attack on the Benghazi consulate was spontaneous and not anti-American or against Obama's policies, although the (politically incorrect) Libyan president, the 9/11 timing, and the weapons and tactics of the attackers all indicate that it was. The State Department investigation will probably be available about November 7.

- The attention should be on Mitt Romney for criticizing the Cairo embassy's apologetic message which was later disavowed by the State Department and the White House.

The Obama administration's response to events across the Middle East is similar to its response to the domestic economy - passive, ineffectual, and blame shifting. The quandry for the Romney campaign - how much time to spend discussing Obama's foreign policy failures when the public wants to hear specifically what he will do to fix the economy. Perhaps things will get so bad that even CNN and the networks will have to set the record straight on the collapse of Obama's foreign policy. Good luck with that!

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This week's video is of UN Ambassador Susan Rice doubling down on the administration's position that the rash of violent demonstrations from Morocco to Jakarta had nothing to do with anti-Americanism or the Obama administration's policies.

July 26, 2012

As the political discussion shifts for a moment to the international stage the Romney camp's hope is to capitalize on Mitt's role in saving the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics and stress his two foreign policy themes: he will be a stronger military and diplomatic leader of the Free World; and he will be a more reliable partner for our long term allies. Beyond the Olympics, most attention will go Romney's fourth visit to Israel where he will meet with former Boston Consulting Group colleague Benjamin Netanyahu. The Polish visit is being shrugged off by much of the media, but it may be more important.

On the substance:

- The Poles, caught between Germany and Russia, have embraced the West and the United States since Reagan backed down the Soviet Union. They joined NATO in 1999, the European Union in 2004 (but not the common currency), and have provided units of 2500 troops in Iraq and 2600 in Afghanistan.

- After six years of missile defense negotiation and agreement between the Bush Administration and the governments of Poland and the Czech Republic, Obama abandoned the plan in 2009 without consulting with the Poles and Czechs, and getting nothing in return from the Russians. He chose the 70th anniversary of Russia's invasion of Poland to make the announcement.

- Beyond the substance, relations with the Obama administration have been prickly. In May Obama offended many Poles by refusing Lech Walesa's request to represent a WW II Polish hero at a Medal of Freedom ceremony - probably due to Walesa's caution about our "slipping into socialism". Obama's inadvertent reference to "Polish (not Nazi) death camps" at the ceremony, brought the current Polish president's response that "we always react in the same way when ignorance, lack of knowledge, bad intentions lead to such a distortion of history, so painful for us here in Poland, in a country which suffered like no other in Europe during World War II." Reagan and the Bush's were friend of Poland; Obama not so much.

- Romney's characterization of Russia as "our number one geopolitical foe" plays well in Poland, following Obama's accidental on-mike assurance to Russian leaders that he would have "more flexibility" to deal with central European issues after the election.

And on the politics:

- Narrowly, there are about 10 million people of Polish ancestry in the United States. In a time of ethnic politics - African-Americans for Obama; Hispanics for Obama - they are an identifiable subset of "Reagan Democrats", making up 9.3% of voters in Wisconsin, 8.6 % in Michigan, and 6.7% in Pennsylvania where the election promises to be very close.

- Few seem to be watching the large geopolitical trends, but as we have been focused on the Muslim world since 9/11 (Iraq; Afghanistan; the Arab Spring), Putin's Russia has gone about consolidating the Kremlin's power internally, and reestablishing it's hegemony over much of the former Soviet Union with the Georgia War in 2008, and the establishment of the Belarus/Kazakhstan/Russia Customs Union in 2010.

There are lots of options for Romney to make symbolic visits to allies who have been shorted by the Obama Administration - Canada; Mexico; the United Kingdom; Germany; Japan - but his choice of Poland shows both a bit of "out of the box" thinking, and a broad geopolitical grasp. Not that the media will give him credit for a very real foreign policy difference with the Obama administration.

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Senator Scott Brown's "Let America Be America Again" is the best political ad in a long time - bipartisan references, patriotic, pro-jobs, and even pro Red Sox.

May 17, 2012

I have received quite a bit of blow-back for last week's suggestion that Hillary Clinton's foreign policy performance has made her a powerful Democratic choice for VP, and perhaps for president. My point was about her political position; the Obama foreign policy legacy is a longer (and sadder) story, but it might as well begin here.

The big picture:

1. After a doubling of our forces in Afghanistan (truly Obama's war), we are drawing down there, have exited Iraq (where America's influence is rapidly being eclipsed by Iran), and have had a very light footprint in places such as Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. Al Queda is decimated, but anti-Western Muslim fundamentalism lives; we just confront it in the way that Donald Rumsfeld advocated - with small special forces operations, the CIA, and the TSA. Most would agree that it is good to be ending the larger post-9/11 wars, and that the administration is "directionally correct."

2. To a large extent Obama tried to reach out to our adversaries - Iran; North Korea; Cuba - offering talks with no preconditions, while slighting many friends: Great Britain (removing Churchill's bust from the Capitol for example), Canada (the XL Pipeline for example); Mexico (Fast and Furious for example); Poland (missile defense agreements for example.) This got missile tests in Korea and the back of a hand from Iran and Castro. There have been few gestures of solidarity with other major allies - Japan (despite the potential to help after the tsunami), Germany (who seems to be alone in defending financial integrity in Europe), Israel (advocating a return to the '67 borders). The" re-set" of the relation with Russia is over, as evidenced by Putin's snub of the upcoming G-8 meeting in New York. Overall, it has been a naive rookie performance - more like Jimmy Carter than Nixon or Reagan.

3. For neo-isolationists on the Left and Right who think that the US should not get involved in other countries' affairs Obama has generally been good news. The Arab Spring has come and gone with little effort by the US to help bend it in the direction of western democracy - first in Iran in 2009, then in Egypt and Libya, and now in Syria, where an overthrow of Assad would be a blow to Iran. The Obama Doctrine was accurately described in the liberal New Yorker as "leading from behind".

4. Not much karma has been used in defending American companies around the world. Trade with China - including exchange rates, intellectual property protection, and Chinese import restrictions on things such as automotive products - is a big issue which Romney will emphasize. Brazil's criminal prosecution of US oil industry executives for a relatively small spill draws no response. And then, there is no administration response to having the world's highest corporate income tax rate.

In political terms, Obama's general retreat from the international stage may have been what people want - reflecting exhaustion from the Iraq and Afghan wars. The bad news is that the world is a dangerous place (particularly Iran, Pakistan, and Korea) while America's economic success is inevitably tied to our position as the world's economic, political, monetary, and military leader - and the result of electing a president whose inclinations are against business and the military has been predictable.

May 03, 2012

OK, lets take a deep breath. Veterans and conservatives may be offended by President Obama's self-promotion and the silly claim that Romney wouldn't have given the SEALs a "Go", but killing bin Laden is a political winner for President Obama - perhaps his biggest. I'd like to focus on two aspects that the mainstream media will note only in passing, if at all.

1. It is the policies put in place by President George W. Bush and opposed by candidate Barack Obama which allowed this national success. Specifically, and unquestionably, the harsh interrogation of key prisoners - 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al Queda operations chief Abu Faraj al-Libi, "20th hijacker" Muhammad Mani al-Qahtani, and Hassan Ghul, an associate of al Queda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi - at Guantanamo Bay and CIA "black sites" led to the identification of the courier who was Osama bin Laden's primary contact with the outside world. The courier led the CIA to bin Laden. For the remaining "deniers", this article on Red State by Dan McLaughlin lays it out in excruciating detail.

Obama has closed the "black sites" and stopped rendition to prisons in countries with lower treatment standards. Holder's brief effort to prosecute CIA interrogators has been put in abeyance - at least until after the election. The Obama / Holder objective of closing Guantanamo and trying terrorists in civilian courts in New York has been defeated by Republicans in Congress. The current policy of drone assassinations which avoids risk to ground troops and the legal thicket of where prisoners should be held and tried unfortunately also forecloses any opportunity for intelligence gathering.

For those who think moral purity trumps national security, the killing of bin Lden is "Bush's fault."

2. Still on this "enhanced interrogation" theme, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gets the prize for the greatest chutzpah of the You Tube age for this 2009 performance in which she claimed that the CIA had lied to her and that she was never briefed on the fact that "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as water-boarding were being used. Unfortunately for Nancy, recently retired CIA Clandestine Service manager Jose Rodriguez has discussed in a book, Hard Measures, both the measures that were used and the detail in which he explained them to the Speaker.

Don't expect an apology.

And one final thought on the politics of it all: there is a rhythm to the campaign and a shelf life on the public's interest in any subject. The Romney campaign is playing it best with congratulations for all, and perhaps wondering why Axelrod played his biggest trump so early in the game.

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To take the discussion one step further, this week's video is a conversation between former Attorney General Ed Meese, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul relative to renewal of the Patriot Act. Last year the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court heard 1745 requests for wiretaps and espionage surveillance, approving them all. Perhaps if Washington is all-Republican, we can have a good discussion of the trade-offs without the partisan posturing.

January 05, 2012

-The war cost the United States some 4500 killed, 32,000 wounded and over $1 trillion. (For comparison, the Vietnam War cost some 58,000 Americans killed and 350,000 wounded, more than ten times as many.) Iraqi suffering was much greater. There is room to argue about the war's genesis, but there is little doubt that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein - his invasion of Iran in 1980 led to a war which cost at least 500,000 lives; his invasion of Kuwait in 1990 led to our first Gulf War; his retribution against the Kurds and Iraqi Shiites led to his eventual execution. George W Bush's "surge" in 2007, achieved its military and political objectives of a unified country with an elected government and a commitment to withdraw US combat forces by the end of 2011.

- There were options as to how the end of American involvement would be handled. President Obama's approach has been consistent with his broader approach to the Middle East - not attempting to influence the direction of local political or military developments - Iran in 2009; Libya in 2011; Egypt in 2011; Yemen; Palestine; Syria.

-- While it may have been possible to retain a small military presence in a training role and to mediate between the Sunnis, the Shiites, and the Kurds, Obama did not seek that role.

-- Rather than move remaining high profile prisoners to Guantanamo he chose to turn them over to the Iraqis, with the likelihood that the Shiites will be released.

-- Hillary's State Department will have the world's largest embassy in Baghdad to oversee some police training and watch the regional politics.

-- Understanding the new Iraqi order, Exxon Mobil has decided to explore in the semi-independent Kurdistan with the likelihood that they will be expelled from the major Iraqi oil fields.

-- The December 20 ceremony to welcome home the colors and the final troops was attended by President Obama and Vice President Biden had little fanfare and no hint of "mission accomplished."

In the first week after the American withdrawal events have gone predictably badly:

- The Shiite president Malaki has issued an arrest warrant for the Sunni Vice President who is hiding in Kurdistan. So much for the balanced government that Gen. Petreus had forged.

- The Iranians have demonstrated their ascendancy - in response to western sanctions against their nuclear program, but also as a demonstration to their neighbors - staging major war games in the Persian Gulf, and threatening to close the Straights of Hormuz through which one third of the world's oil exports pass if a US aircraft carrier reenters the Gulf.

And, per Representative Wasserman Schultz, this is one of Obama's great achievements.

December 22, 2011

Hearing that Iowa has recently recalled three judges for approving same sex marriage, the Newtster has apparently decided that the civil libertarian caucus goers will vote for Ron Paul anyway and he should swing for the fences with the evangelicals who are on the warpath about the courts. His Waterloo.

The "historian" presidential candidate has determined that the Founding Fathers were wrong in establishing three co-equal branches of government, that U.S. Marshall's should be used to force federal judges to explain their rulings to Congress, and that President Gingrich would ignore Supreme Court decisions that he didn't like. Shades of "It Can't Happen Here."

Like many conservatives, I am conflicted when it comes to civil liberties in an age of terrorism and technology.

- The Patriot Act, passed shortly after 9/11, increased the government's ability to conduct secret searches of property, conduct wiretaps, access third party data bases, and trace internet communications. Maybe an understandable response in a time of war (after all, Gingrich argues, Lincoln suspended the right to a trial during the Civil War), but uncomfortable in a free society.

- In September Anwar al-Awlaki was killed by a drone-fired missile in Yemen, the first time since 9/11 that an American-born citizen was deliberately targeted and killed by American forces. OK by me as an act of war - assuming proper controls over identification and authorization.

- This very month Congress has passed and the president will sign a bill specifically authorizing indefinite detention of anyone (foreign or American; captured in the United States or abroad) who "substantially supports" groups such as Al Queda or "associated forces." No duration; no guaranteed trial.

- Medical record systems are being rapidly expanded to improve quality and reduce cost. Privacy controls are included, but ...

- Massive data bases, public and private, contain detailed purchase and banking records, internet viewing histories, e-mail histories, and on and on. Cameras on every corner in some cities. Amazon knows enough about you to recommend books; Apple can recommend music; Yelp can recommend restaurants. Good luck with privacy there.

So, who is going to protect a semblance of habeus corpus and the right to privacy if not the court system? Citibank? The CIA? Congress? President Gingrich? We all know that we'd be safe with him, but what about the next guy or gal?

I really don't know the answers to the privacy and civil liberties questions, but I do rely on an independent judiciary to help the country stay on track. And, as alarmist as it may sound, I do know that folks like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao have sounded the same notes that Newt is using on the courts.

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This week's video provides a bit of levity for those not particularly interested in Hanukkah, Quanza, or Muharram. Merry Christmas!!!

September 29, 2011

Back in the Cold War days military planners were forced to "think the unthinkable" - produce dispassionate studies of various nuclear war scenarios. Here's hoping that they've turned their talents to looking at the defense budget.

The baseline: The military budget is now about $700 billion per year; 20% of federal spending; almost 5% of GDP. Taking out the Afghan and Iraq wars it is about $550 billion - slightly less in inflation adjusted terms than it was in the 80s when we were facing down the Soviet Union, China, and their global allies. We are the world's policeman, protecting Europe, the flow of oil from the Middle East, our allies in the Far East, and our borders. Well, maybe not so much our borders.

The problem: We're broke. Republican instincts would protect military budgets and hold taxes steady; Democratic instincts would protect entitlements and raise taxes. So, this year's battles have been fought over the 35% of spending that is "discretionary"; or actually the 15% of the "discretionary" that is non-military. Yet we've got trillion dollar deficits. The Republican Ryan budget proposes a minimal defense reduction (beyond the wars); the Obama twelve year proposal is $400 billion; if the Deficit Reduction Committee can't resolve its differences there will be an additional automatic $600 billion. Mind boggling.

The options: When facing big cuts it is often better to eliminate broad swaths instead of chiselling away to the point that nothing is workable. Beyond the wars, what is available? For example, the Air Force budget includes $11 billion for 35 more Stealth fighters; the Navy budget includes $4 billion for two more nuclear submarines and a $1 billion down-payment on an additional aircraft carrier; the nuclear program projects $100 billion over the next decade to improve our 1550 long range nuclear weapons. The New York Times and Obama will probably get their way with significant reductions in the health-care and pensions of military families and retirees. (Labor costs are about 25% of the military budget.)

A vignette: By chance I attended a class reunion at the Air Force Academy this past weekend and had a chance to reflect. The school has a top rated academic program, particularly in engineering; they field 27 intercollegiate athletic teams and offer a robust intramural program; they have done a good job integrating women into the cadet corps. Since my graduation in the pre-Cambrian age the corps has increased from 2500 to 4400; a light aircraft flight program has been added, as has a drone program; world class track, field house, and indoor athletic training facilities have been added. (Some with private contributions.) Planning is underway for a stunning Leadership Center. In good times each Superintendant has been able to build upon the edifice of their predecessor. In the Ryan "nip and tuck" scenario there may be no more buildings and maybe the football team will not stay at an off site hotel for home football games. In the Obama scenario the student body might revert to 2500. In the Armageddon scenario somebody will ask why we spend $300,000 on each cadet's education rather than consolidating the military academies or relying on ROTC.

It is not possible to achieve national fiscal sanity without significant cuts in military budgets - IMHO. Robert Gates did a decent job restraining expensive weapons systems and Leon Paneta's understanding of Congress indicates that he might as well, but these are the preliminaries. One would hope that the next administration will have a clear foreign policy, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of our adversaries, and preserve just the forces necessary to achieve our national security objectives. The selection of a Secretary of Defense will be as important as the Treasury Secretary.

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This video of Mitt Romney on MSNBC's Morning Joe provides a glimpse of what a general election campaign would look like.

June 09, 2011

Like them or not, there are four truths that govern Middle Eastern outcomes from Pakistan to Morocco. Forget the power of tweets and the Arab Spring. This is the big picture.

1. We are Israel's guarantor. With the strength of the Jewish lobby there is no alternative. And with Barack Hussein Obama being the darling of Academia where the Palestinians are seen as the subjugated victims there is no chance that he can improve upon the comprehensive proposition which nearly was accepted in 1993 under the Clinton administration. Obama's "lets start with pre-1967 borders" is an effort to get things going, but it is a non-starter and uber-envoy George Mitchell's resignation reflects that Obama is not the arbiter.

2. Iran will have the bomb; the question is how the neighbors will react. Since China developed theirs, the bipartisan American commitment to defend Japan (and Taiwan and eventually Korea) prevented an East Asian arms race. When India developed theirs the Pakistanis felt that they needed their own. For Iran's neighbors (Saudi Arabia; Egypt; maybe Turkey) to rely on the United States instead of starting an arms race would require a belief in an unshakable bipartisan American commitment to their defense. Sorry President Mubarek. Sorry President Karzai. Sorry President Zardari. Sorry President Saleh. We need to find leaders who better represent our ideals; but, trust us, we really will have the Sunni Arab backs when Iran comes calling. Good luck with that. (The key in a list of bad situations - support Zardari in Pakistan, the Saudis, and the Egyptian generals.)

3. Oil matters - and Saudi Arabia controls oil. UN Ambassador / CIA Director / President George H W Bush got it. Texas oilman George W Bush got it. The relationship with the Saudi royal family was genuine and personal. Not so Barack Obama of the wind farms, solar panels, and subsidized electric cars. At least we are staying out of the way as the Saudis clean up their neighborhood in Bahrain and Yemen and we are not calling for "power to the people" of the Arabian Peninsula.

4. Terrorism is transnational and permanent. Congratulations to President Obama for finishing the job that President Bush began with bin Laden. We can push these guys from Afghanistan to Pakistan to Somalia to Yemen and kill each generation of new leaders, but human history is filled with more Pol Pots and bin Laden's than Mother Theresa's and Ghandi's. The question is not how to raise the global standard of living to the point where Nirvana will break out (our apparent Afghan policy); it is how to contain the risk in an age of physical, communication, and financial globalization. Better governance throughout the Middle East would help, but not as much as Seal Team 6.

My apologies to those who are looking for more optimistic answers. We need Kissinger more than Carter. Maybe he could explain why the President is defying the War Powers Act to prosecute a war in Libya that has no apparent connection to American interests.

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This week's video is President Obama's self-congratulatory auto industry speech which The Washington Post calls "one of the most misleading collections of assertions we have seen in a short presidential speech. Virtually every claim by the president regarding the auto industry needs an asterisk, just like the fine print in that too-good-to-be-true car loan." That is the Washington Post.

May 04, 2011

Few events merit the discussion that the killing of Osama bin Laden is generating. President Obama exhibited uncharacteristic leadership; years of rigorous intelligence work were vindicated; Seal Team 6 performed at the highest standards imaginable. A lifetime ago I spent some years in military intelligence and have the highest regard for the participants. Some reflections:

1. The Bush policies of agressive interrogation, electronic surveillance, and overseas prisons each played a role in identifying the courier who led us to bin Laden's compound. Bush's creation of the joint terrorism operations center and expansion of special operations capabilities also deserves some credit. On the other hand, the Obama/Holder policies of closing Guantanamo, restricting surveillance, and treating terrorists as common criminals would not have. Nor does the Holder/Obama decision in 2009 to investigate CIA interrogators for "improper" behavior. There is room for liberals to argue morality or legalisms here, but the "effectiveness" argument is destroyed - and the American people would seem to care more about effectiveness.

2. Jay Carney, the president's PR guy is in over his head. In events such as this it is critical that there be one spokesman - not having Carney, Brennan, Panetta, Clinton, and others giving their shifting versions of what happened. That said, most of the substantive decisions have been good - deny the Muslim fanatics a martyr by giving him a proper burial at sea and not showing the photos.

3. The praise for Obama's courage is a bit misplaced. Given strong evidence that bin Laden was there, the (improper) courageous act would have been to NOT follow the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs and the Director of the CIA. (A bomb would not have provided the necessary direct physical evidence, would have caused collateral damage, and would not have allowed the collection of other materials from the site.) What is amusing is the reaction of Obama's remaining acolytes who opposed aggressive interrogation but have no problem with what amounted to an execution.

4. Panetta was apparently the hawk in the group. With him taking over Defense and Petreus taking over the CIA, we will have robust national security leadership. Nevertheless, the timely exit from Afghanistan seems to be more likely.

5. We sometimes over estimate our adversaries. It is stunning that bin Laden would have extensive unprotected information in paper and electronic form. His loss is a big deal to al Queda (people had taken an oath of fealty to him personally), but we should also have the ability to roll up much of the second tier. And if they expect that they have been compromised many may take risky measures to find alternative cover.

6. The question of whether the Pakistani government is duplicitous or incompetent is false. They were duplicitous. What is disappointing is that we didn't have anybody in the high command or in Abbottabad who would tell us what was going on. (Or maybe we did and some of this other story is a cover.) In any case Hillary's positioning is correct: that Pakistan has suffered greatly from Islamic militants (presidential and other assassinations for example), that they have helped us a great deal (giving up Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for example), that their nuclear stockpile must be protected, and that we need to be responsive to the entire complex relationship.

7. The domestic politics will play out to Obama's advantage - particularly in finally acting as the Commander in Chief rather than a law professor. Understandably President Bush chose not to be a foil, opting to hold his Ground Zero appearance until the 10th anniversary. Perhaps Obama's previous history of attacking the Supreme Court justices and then Paul Ryan at major "non-partisan" public events went into the calculation.

In any event, this was a great day - for the Seals, for the intelligence community, for the administration, and for America.

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This week's You Tube is the interview of Leon Panetta by Brian Williams in which Panetta was clear that waterboarding was one source of information that led to the locating of bin Laden. Williams did a nice job in not letting Panetta get by with a vague answer.

March 24, 2011

As Don Rumsfeld so cleverly said, there are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. Unfortunately the administration is floundering in the latter.

First the known knowns:

- Perhaps the best early military strategist, Sun Tzu, stressed having profound understanding of your enemy and allies and maneuvering in such a way that battle is unnecessary. This was extended in the post-Vietnam "Powell Doctrine": if you do need to go to war, bring overwhelming force. In his defense, Robert Gates understands these principles and cautioned against Libyan intervention without Congressional approval.

- Libya is a third-tier player in the broader Middle East, of little strategic importance to the United states. See my posting of March 3.

- Engagement in a foreign conflict may not require prior congressional approval, but the "advise and consent" function requires more than a letter postmarked from Rio. Legislators on both sides of the aisle have egos.

- Liberal Obama apologists in the media and the Democratic party can tie themselves in knots explaining why this is not like George Bush's war in Iraq, how great leadership can be from the back of the parade, and good intentions are more important than executable plans.

Second the known unknowns:

- We do not know the objectives - the UN resolution to protect the innocent with a no-fly zone; the correlary of stopping Khadafi''s ground attacks on rebel cities; Obama's strategy that "Khadafi must go" - which encouraged the rebels in the first place, but is not in the UN resolution and promises a very brief and limited engagement.

- We do not know the chain of command - with Obama's commitment to turn over leadership within a few days, NATO is the only realistic military option but that is opposed by France, Germany, Turkey, and Italy for various political reasons. France's suggestion of a "political steering committee" of US, European, and Arab foreign ministers is patently absurd - but Obama may well seize on it as a way to avoid responsibility.

- We have little idea who we are fighting for. Stratfor has a great analysis of the mistaken premise that throughtout the region there is a thirst for liberal democracy. (It is largely about tribal power.) In Libya there is neither a likelihood that the rebels can succeed without extensive military support nor a likelihood that they can govern in a way acceptable in the Park Avenue salons - whoever they are.

Third the unknown unknowns:

- What if Khadafi survives? Tons of mustard gas. Sons to continue on for decades. A world willing to buy oil from anybody. Decades of documented terrorist acts against Western and Arab states? A resurrected nuclear program? A "wounded bear" syndrome.

- What are the implications for the countries that matter - Iran, Israel, Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia; for the lesser regional players; for our posture toward the rebellions spreading across the Arab world; for anybody else who is watching the decline of American power. Fortunately Bush got Khadafi to give up his nuclear program in the 2003, but what is the lesson for North Korea or other wannabe's.

There are reasons that Khadafi has been in power for 42 years, and they haven't changed. Unfortunately, what has changed is that we have a president who has not read Sun Tzu or spoken with Colin Powell. And one who believes that a speech wishing for a result is the same as making the commitments necessary to achieve it.

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Here is Tim Pawlenty's video announcing the official start of his presidential campaign. Within the party he is not the first choice of many, but is offensive to few and may well be the leading "Anybody but Romney" candidate.

March 03, 2011

Successful foreign policy requires a bit of idealism (particularly in a democracy) and a lot of Realpolitik. The strategy must be well understood by the leaders, but a bit of ambiguity is needed to prevent the adversaries from attacking the weak points.

First, the idealism:

George Bush and Condi Rice pushed the idea that the spread of democracy in the Muslim world would serve as an antidote to fundamentalism. Barack Obama adopted the theme in his Cairo speech of 2009. For the United States, this theme goes back at least to Woodrow Wilson's "war to make the world safe for democracy." In Iraq and Afghanistan we did not just put a friendly face in power - as the British did throughout the region in the '50s - we held messy elections. In the long run that may be best.

We'd also like to stop people from killing their own people. In Egypt it was a few hundred; in Libya it is in the thousands. But, in recent decades the West has shown little interest in the neighborhood when the numbers were in the hundreds of thousands or millions in Darfur/Sudan, Rwanda, and the Congo. For some reason CNN did not care.

Second, the Realpolitik:

Throughout the region there are three tiers of importance, and our actions should be measured in their impact on the top tier. The game is about Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran. If the first four are OK, we are OK; it would be a great world if we could make Iran OK. Tier Two Egypt and Iraq matter, but not so much.

The third tier, which includes most of the places currently in turmoil - Libya, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Morocco - doesn't really matter except for their impact on the top tier. For these there are simple rules - no weapons of mass destruction, no al Queda, no attacking your neighbors - particularly if they are in the top tier. Fortunately Gaddafy gave up his nuclear program when Bush invaded Iraq in 2003. Sadly, Afghanistan belongs in this bottom group.

As we consult with our allies, position our forces, and pass UN resolutions we need to keep our priorities in mind. We still have overwhelmingly the world's greatest military force, an economy almost three times the size of the second place Chinese and the dollar as the global reserve currency, but in the new reality we cannot be the world's only police force - particularly where we are not invited. Libya matters to Europe because of oil and a potential flood of refugees; if they don't take a stronger position than they did in the Balkan Wars of the 90's, maybe the European Union needs to rethink their military policies. If the Arab League doesn't want our help, well ...

As we approach the 2012 elections there is a tendency to view the performance of the Obama administration in political terms. "Mubarak is not a tyrant" (Biden); "his government is stable"(Clinton); "he must go now"(Carney); "we should impose a no fly zone in Libya" (Clinton); "we need to avoid loose talk about a no fly zone" (Gates). It is clear that there is no coordinated strategy or position as each leader makes their own statements while policy is made up on the fly. Thus far the result in the lesser countries is acceptable, but American leadership in the region is being badly eroded.

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Joe Biden is always good for a humorous video, here during a plant visit to tout the administration's heavy subsidies for electric cars.

February 17, 2011

As the news cycle moves on to President Obama's feckless budget (next week's posting), a quick reprise of the events in Egypt is in order.

- First, I assume that the Army will maintain order until elections are held in the Fall, that the Muslim Brotherhood will be one of several political blocks, that we will continue to buy the Army's support, and that the new government will reflect the country's dependence on Western tourism. Best case, most likely IMHO. The next daunting task - turning political energy into economic energy.

- The Egyptian people deserve a great deal of credit for remaining purposefully nonviolent despite reasonable gripes and a spate of provocation. Wael Ghonim, Google's chief of marketing for North Africa and the Middle East, will probably get a Nobel Peace Prize for his use of Facebook to organize protesters. One hopes that the next couple of years are not filled with a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for retribution against the supporters of the Mubarak regime.

- President Obama deserves credit for the voice which he eventually found ("decisions are up to the Egyptian people; we support representative government and free expression") after false starts by Hillary Clinton ("regime stable"), Robert Gibbs ("transition must start now"), and Joe Biden ("no dictator"). Obama probably got some courage from perfect pitch editorials by Charles Krautheimer and Bill Kristol which far outshone Glenn Beck's rants about a new caliphate aligned with the objectives of the political Left. Most perplexing was the fact that CIA Director Paneta found it necessary to prematurely announce Mubarek's resignation and to proclaim that the Muslim Brotherhood was a secular institution. Perhaps next time the administration will have a single public voice.

- Fortunately our policy has been consistent since Condi Rice's 2005 Cairo speech (more forceful and four years before Obama's): democracy and personal liberty are universal objectives; friends encourage friends to take preemptive steps in that direction. The policy is bipartisan, with virtually no elected Republicans criticizing Obama for his handling of the Egyptian uprising.

Egypt (and Tunisia) may be just the beginning. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and the Gulf states will not be so enlightened in their dealing with protesters. Iran's democracy movement may replay the protests of 2009, hoping (probably futily) for American support this time. Israel may be faced with its Palestinian citizens. Yemen has an al Queda presence and a long open border with Saudi Arabia. Each country has its own history, factions, and limitations - lights will be on late at night at the State Department, the Central Command, and Langley. Beyond Egypt, our government remains eerily quiet, reflecting a belief that we have lost our influence in the region. Lets ask Allah for some more luck.

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This week's video shows our dear leader responding to criticism that he forgot to include fixing Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security in his 2012 budget. Clueless or politically calculating?

January 27, 2011

Discussions about President Hu Jintao's recent visit to the United States have been remarkably shallow, given the importance of the relationship between the two countries and the availability of information. Perhaps it is a European bias in our East Coast media or our current sense of national financial angst that prevents a meaningful discussion. (It did give Obama an "investment" theme for his State of the Union address.) I will provide a perspective on this most important relationship nurtured out here on the West Coast.

The Chinese leadership - not a single dictator; a Politburo of a couple dozen members - must feel quite good about themselves. With the past decade's annual 9% GDP growth they have lifted 300 million people out of poverty and passed Japan as the world's second largest economy. They have had no wars. They were little affected by the 2008 global financial meltdown. They enjoy the traditional "Mandate of Heaven".

The century before this had not been so harmonious for the Middle Kingdom: the Boxer Rebellion; Sun Yat Sen's overthrow of the Qing Dynasty in 1912; World War I; Mao's Revolution; World War II; the Korean War; the Great Leap Forward; and a few million casualties from other internal and external conflicts. Today's leaders grew up in these latter days. They like peaceful, prosperous order.

China's self-image has been helped by the shaking of the Western economic system, but they do have their problems. They have lost their family-based social security system as hundreds of millions have migrated for jobs and government policy has required a single child; thus a high personal savings rate. Lack of confidence in the currency and the stock market has driven a real estate bubble. Highway construction has not kept up with 12 million auto sales per year. Pollution abounds. Despite a population four times the US, their GDP is still only about one third of ours - one tenth in per capita terms.

So what do we need from them?

1. Support for a soft landing while we get our financial house in order. That means reasonable currency and export policies and continued purchases of our debt. In exchange they'd like to see a plan. (So would I.)

2. Peace in East Asia. Mostly this means corralling North Korea. A low profile in neighborhood disputes would be a bonus. (Their recent test of a "stealth" aircraft matches where we were 30 years ago. Our military budget is six times theirs.)

3. A market for our agricultural and tech stuff. We are still the world's largest manufacturer and have a comparative advantage in computers, telecom, pharma, aircraft, and a number of other industries.

And what do they need from us?

1. A continued market for their lower end stuff. They still have a couple hundred million more folks in the interior to get off of the farm and become consumers and they need jobs to soak up internal migration. And as their labor costs increase, global manufacturing of textiles, shoes, and plastic junk moves to Bengladesh and Vietnam. But WalMart still becons.

2. No meddling in their internal affairs. Democracy activist Liu Xiaobo and Tibet independence leader The Dalai Lama do have more Nobel Peace Prize "cred" than Barack Obama, but there is understandable resentment that the West would focus on a developing democracy rather than more worthy honorees in Russia, Pakistan, Africa, or Latin America.

3. Respect. This was the gift of Obama to the Chinese, as "parity" was trumpeted in the Chinese press. The reciprocal gift?

It is ironic that we have been lurching toward an enlarged central government which intervenes extensively in the economy while the Chinese success is driven largely by an adoption of capitalism. (Their favorite presidents are probably Nixon who opened relations and George W who allowed a massive trade imbalance.) We will inevitably compete with the Chinese for natural resources and we need to stand up for our friends in the neighborhood, but the Chinese have never had global military ambitions. They do not export religious zealots. And they don't insist that the rest of the world adopt a One Child Policy, outlaw the burning of coal, or speak Mandarin. We could do a lot worse for a partner with whom to share global leadership in the new century.

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This week's video is Paul Ryan's ten minute response to President Obama's State of the Union address. Obama has apparently made the political calculation to ignore the recommendations of his Deficit Reduction Commission, put on a sunny face, and defer to the leadership of Ryan and the Republicans on all matters financial. While that may be good cynical politics, the experience of Chris Cristie suggests that the American people are at the point where they will reward adult supervision. Let's hope.

December 09, 2010

One very important subject that has received modest attention in recent days is the nation's nuclear weapons policy. I will try to present some perspective on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia which President Obama would like to have approved by the lame duck Senate.

- Presidents Nixon, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush all negotiated successful nuclear arms reduction treaties with the Russians (nee Soviets) to reduce strategic nuclear armaments by some two thirds from their peak to today's levels. The new treaty cuts the total by 30% and sets limits of 1550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads each on land, air, and sea launchers - a figure that all military testimony agrees is adequate. With some caveats it has the support of the last six Republican Secretaries of State as well as the usual New York Times crowd and opposition of groups such as the Heritage Foundation.

- Senator Kyle, the Republicans' leader on the subject (and the party's Whip) is satisfied with the verification procedures and has extracted $84 billion over 10 years to upgrade our nuclear stockpile. (I am reminded of President Eisenhower's warning about the need to keep feeding the military industrial complex, and the fact that after the Soviet collapse we spent millions to subsidize work for their nuclear scientists so that they would not seek other employers.)

- There is one important caveat. Since 1972 all agreements have separated discussions of offensive weapons from defensive weapons. The Russians have wanted to link defensive and offensive systems since President Reagan's "Star Wars" initiative propelled the American advantage in defensive technology which the Russians have been unable to afford. (Logically, if the other guy has a better defense, you probably do need more offense.) In the main body of Obama's START agreement they remain uncoupled; however, the preamble recognizes an "interrelationship." The Republicans would like more time to review the inconsistencies between Russian President Medvedev's interpretation that they are linked and president Obama's that they are not. Particularly, there are a number of briefing papers and diplomatic communications that need to be reviewed and a clear statement from the president before the Senate's "Advice and Consent".

- The broader perspective is that this is the last century's discussion and todays focus needs to be on preventing proliferation (Iran; North Korea), developing a joint defensive shield that would protect against a rogue state, and limiting the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons (where the Russians have greater numbers) - all things that the Russians are interested in discussing. In the background our East European allies seem to be more interested in these subjects and Belarus, one of two Soviet republics outside of Russia with a stockpile of highly enriched uranium, has committed to give it up by 2012. Progress indeed.

- Meanwhile the pundits have their day - George Will talks about the irrelevance of the current Russia and the Senate's constitutional role while others talk about Obama's lack of negotiating skills, linking the treaty to concessions on other legislation, and the importance of getting it approved before more Republicans arrive. I agree with Condi Rice, the sooner the better.

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This week's video is a sobering trailer by former Senator Sam Nunn's Nuclear Threat Initiative, the premier private organization devoted to reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism. My novel, The Target, is intended to be part of this conversation, demonstrating the universality of the problem.

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And a comment on comments. We are having some excellent discussions; I would encourage readers to look at the comments from the prior week. I respond when I think it would be appropriate. For those posting comments, the site is sometimes too time sensitive - I would recommend writing the comment in word and then pasting it into the blog's comments box. Thanks for your active interest.

September 02, 2010

It is nice to have another speech from President Obama about his victory in Iraq and the "get in / get out" strategy in Afghanistan. It would be nice to hear something from him about the escalating war on our southern border.

As a preamble, I would note that Mexico abuts four states while Afghanistan is 7000 miles away; we have a stalwart ally in Mexico's Felipe Calderon (who recently fired 10% of the federal police force for corruption) as compared to Hamid Karzai (who fired the chief investigator of Afghan corruption); and we now spend over $70 billion per year on the Afghan War as compared to $400 million supporting Mexico's anti-drug efforts.

It is hard to know what to think about the cartel-driven violence in Mexico. Since Calderon began his crackdown on drug smuggling in 2006, some 28,000 people have been killed - mostly members of the Gulf, Familia, Zeta, and other cartels, but also many targeted government officials and a significant number of civilians. While the greatest problem is drugs (a $13 billion dollar a year business), attempted kidnappings have caused the removal of US consulate dependents in the business center of Monterrey; and last week 72 Central and South American migrants were killed 100 miles from the Texas border when they did not pay extortion demands. Kingpins keep getting killed or captured, but new ones pop up. In several border areas, the cartels represent an alternate government.

While most of the violence remains in Mexico, we are a big part of the problem: most of the cocaine, meth, and marijuana market is in the U.S.; most of the weapons come from here; and the migrants are easy targets. Our border cities- San Diego; Albuquerque; Tucson; Phoenix; El Paso; Houston - do not have particularly high murder rates, but a third of the prisoners in Arizona are illegal immigrants. The cartels largely fight their war south of the border, but they definitely have tentacles in the north.

On the one hand, the violence in Mexico is not our problem. We contribute some $400 million per year to the multinational Merida Initiative to provide equipment and training for the Mexican law enforcement agencies. We agreed in March 2009 to increase our efforts to reduce the flow of money and weapons from the U.S. If our tourists choose to go to the Caribbean or Hawaii, that seems like a good choice.

But, eventually we need to deal with the millions of illegal Mexican immigrants in the country, the things which we do to attract them here, and the things which make them want to leave Mexico. The Calderon administration has been understandably focused on their civil war while our political leaders have been focused on the politics of border management. It would be nice if President Obama moved beyond his polemics against Arizona's efforts to protect themselves, and put as much effort into helping the Mexicans as the Pashtuns. You can bet that John McCain would.

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This week's You Tube is an ad by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer focused on criminality associated with the drug trade - before Hillary's State Department included Obama's attack of the Arizona law in a report to the UN as an example of his defense of human rights. He's on our side, right? Just sayin'.

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And, another plug for my new nuclear terrorism thriller, The Target, which can be purchased in paperback or Kindle versions at Amazon.com or by order from most book stores.

August 05, 2010

The belated discussion about our objectives in Afghanistan recalls the long-standing division between the George Washington-style "Non-interventionists" and Woodrow Wilson-style "Make the World Safe for Democracy" internationalists. It is time for Washington's realism.

In our quest for rapid "nation building" in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have thought that military success would lead to elections and stable societies, lubricated with a few billion dollars of assistance for roads and schools. To our surprise, we are finding that the real test of democracy is not the courage of the public to vote in the face of insurgent threats, but whether leaders are willing to relinquish power - to alternative national leaders (in Iraq), or to local leaders (in Afghanistan.) To his great credit, George Washington did; to his great discredit, Al Gore did not (even though he really did lose.)

Most of today's major nations have taken centuries to form- Italy; Germany; the United Kingdom; China - and even at that there frequently remain separatist tendencies. We keep being shown the lesson that it is very difficult to impose nationhood, democracy, and economic development - most recently in Haiti and Kosovo. Even in the United States, nationhood is not a totally settled question; within the past few weeks:

- An Iroquois lacrosse team refused to travel to an international tournament on US and Canadian passports, insisting instead on their own;

- The House passed a bill to allow a referendum on Puerto Rican statehood. (It will presumably die in the Senate.)

These may seem like quixotic dalliances, but they do make one wonder why we think the Afghans would suddenly want a strong central government. Any "nation building" strategy which starts from that premise - including a strong central army instead of local militias - is doomed to failure.

Some years ago I listened to a presentation by a senior CIA officer who had helped defeat the Taliban with a few hundred Americans, a freightening mix of tribal leaders, a focused mission, and no embedded NY Times reporters. My guess is that, without calling it the Bush approach revisited, Obama will within a year see the wisdom of "less is more".

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This video of Congressman Pete Stark defending the right of the federal government to do anything they wanted comes courtesy of the now-famous Andrew Breitbart.

April 29, 2010

The premise: The military and political decline of empires often follows an economic decline as self-serving corruption eats at the center and rulers favor butter over guns. Chinese dynasties; Rome; Barney Frank and Charlie Rangel.

The setting: The U S of A has had an unprecedented run -with 5 % of the world's population enjoying 30 % of the economy; with the dollar being the global reserve currency buttressed by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization; with pliant military and political alliances spanning Europe, south-central Asia, Southeast Asia, and Latin America; with a defense budget equal to 41% of the world's military spending; with the United Nations in New York and the greatest international universities spread across the land; with McDonalds, Hollywood, and Madonna raising global cultural standards. Ah, those were the days.

The upheaval: So what happens when Obama's trillion dollar deficits make us give up the deal: the hundred Army, Air Force, Marine, and Navy bases spread around the globe; the naval bases in the Indian Ocean which protect the flow of oil to Japan and Australia; the bases in South Korea and Japan which guarantee our friends against Kim Jong il's North Korea and Hu Jintao's China; the 80,000 troops in Europe for some forgotten reason. Oh, and things like the billion dollar bribe to Egypt to leave Israel alone.

The path forward: So, where does the pied piper (whose $3.83 trillion 2011 budget has a deficit of $1.27 trillion and "discretionary security" spending of $782 billion) want to take us if he ever gets serious on the spending side?

- An age with many fewer nuclear weapons - despite a big increase in the 2011 budget. Probably a good idea. Probably will save some money in the long run.

- An age with less new military hardware - the $140 million per F-22 fighter jet; perhaps a carrier battle group or two; the moon exploration program. Secretary of Defense Gates should be able to wield a surgical knife. Will decrease some exports and spin-off civilian applications of the technologies. Bad for some of my stocks.

- An age with a lesser commitment to our long time friends - England; Israel; Japan. Definitely a bad idea, but Hillary doesn't seem to have much of a policy voice. Nature won't like the vacuums.

- An age with less global largess under the State Department's $56 billion umbrella: help for the globe's poor, hungry, sick, climate-challenged, and politically needy.

- An age of diminished expectations - for our kids and grandkids; for the kids growing up in Iran's neighborhood; for the Europeans who have long since forgotten how to protect themselves; for the 100 United Nations members who so much enjoy voting against us in the Security Council - and should start studying Chinese. A very bad idea indeed.

Sometime after the election we will get the recommendations of Obama's commission on fiscal responsibility. One assumes that it will be at least 2000 pages long and that nobody in Congress will read it. But you can also assume that it will protect the expanding health care entitlements, contain enough taxes (probably VAT) to provide the butter, and enough military and foreign policy cuts to sound retreat for the empire. Barry's mother would be proud.

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This week's video is an ad being run by the Republican Governor's Association, Remember November. Much better than what the Republican National Committee is doing.

bill bowen - 4/30/10

An urgent favorite: Tom Campbell who is running in a June 8 primary to face Barbara Boxer in November. Harvard Law; U of Chicago PhD in economics; 5 term congressman from Silicon Valley; twice named the most frugal member of Congress by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation; a fountain of fiscally conservative/socially moderate ideas.

December 31, 2009

There will be much written about Flight 253 - some of it a chronology of facts; some of it a search to attach or deflect blame; much of it political. In my perspective, there are two questions - is the management right? and does leftist ideology get in the way of common sense security measures?

1. Do we have the right management in place? The Department of Homeland Security is a difficult job, even in a conservative administration. By most accounts, the 180,000 person department went through consolidation pains under the politically capable Tom Ridge, and got its act together under the more managerial Michael Chertoff. Somewhere in the murk between Janet Napolitano's idiotic "the system worked" and the apologists like Richard Clark who feel that she is doing a great job (like Katrina's "Brownie"), lie serious management questions. Obama has had a year to work on it, so it is a bit lame to talk of Bush's procedures which they inherited.

- If the transportation Security Administration is so important, why did the Obama administration wait until September to nominate Erroll Southers (an apparently well-qualified former FBI agent) to lead the TSA? The Bush administration created a non-union TSA, but gave the director the authority to allow union elections - a likely prospect in any Democratic administration for the 50,000 federal employees, but one that has caused Senator DeMint to hold the nomination pending a debate on the merits - a debate that will probably not ever happen. .

- Is there a system in place to consolidate all of the known intelligence, review it continuously, and take action on questionable actors - arrests; extra screenings; review of visas; more extensive monitoring. If not, is it because of practical considerations (limitations of data base management capabilities), or concern for civil liberties? With Oracle's data base expertise and Google's magic, why is there a problem in sorting the data? With American Muslims attacking military facilities and traveling to Somalia and Pakistan to blow themselves up, it is obvious that the question isn't just about boarding airplanes.

- Are there regular brainstorming sessions and exercises to stay ahead of the evolving terrorist threat? It is good to keep some of the procedures vague - witness the potential damage from the December 8 publication of airline screening procedures on the Internet. Hopefully, the Intelligence committees will have private inquiries into such questions as why there were apparently still no air marshals on the same Amsterdam to Detroit flight two days after the attempted bombing incident, and why the authorities in Amsterdam had instructions not to use body scans on passengers bound for the United States.

The senior management responsibility is to make sure that the proper processes and people are in place, and then to periodically test them. Bad managers do nothing (Katrina); mediocre managers thrash around after problems (current); good managers use profound understanding to prevent problems. Obama recently gave himself a B + for his first year in office; he needs a mulligan.

2. Does President Obama get it? His three days of silence in Hawaii while he deferred to Secretary Napolitano is eerily similar to President Bush's reading "The Pet Goat" to second graders during 9/11. When he eventually referred to the "alleged" bombing attempt and called the bomber an "isolated individual", he obviously didn't have his normal well-tuned PR voice.

But, this incident should not be viewed in isolation. Like the pending trial of KSM in New York, this is treated as a criminal rather than military offense. This bomber was arrested and charged with the crime of threatening an airliner - thus getting a lawyer, and shutting down his discussion of his Yemeni contacts - who were they; where did he get the materials; what other targets were considered; why did he pick Amsterdam? Presumably he will be able to see all of the evidence against him and have the right to challenge any witnesses.

Interestingly, Dawn Johnsen, Obama's stalled nominee for Director of the Office of Legal Council in the Justice Department would have a big part in the administration's policies on interrogation and prosecution, but enough senators have opposed her for extreme national security and abortion views to deny her the position. Assuming that her name is not resubmitted, Obama has the opportunity to select someone who clearly distinguishes between criminals (entitled to US civil trial rights) and unlawful combatants (entitled only to limited Geneva Convention rights on treatment; and subject to indefinite detention). We'll see.

A narrow criticism of the CIA and the National Counter Terrorism Center will not be enough - although they are appropriate and easy targets. Congress and the public should hold Obama to his outraged call for accountability.

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This week's video is an interview with Parker Griffith, the Congressman (and oncologist) from Alabama who changed party registration from Democrat to Republican this week. Hopefully, his logic will have broader acceptance.

December 10, 2009

I must confess that the clever "surgelet" title belongs to George Will in his overly pessimistic reaction to President Obama's December 1, speech at West Point. My general premise that the region should be looked at from the perspective of Pakistan rather than Afghanistan is contained in my March 20 blog. (See archives to the right.) As much discussion as there has been of Obama's third Afghan strategy - one for the campaign; one in March when he appointed General Chrystal; one now - most observers seem to have missed important points.

First on the substance:

1. Relative to Afghanistan: We can succeed if the objectives are limited. If we need to purge governments of corruption, we should start in Louisiana, New Jersey, or Chicago. If we need to stop the flow of drugs, we should focus on Mexico and Columbia. Schools? - we can start here in California. If we just want to deny a safe haven to al Queda, we can do that with a secure government in Kabul which allows us to "search and destroy" as necessary.

2. Relative to Pakistan: I hear pundits talking about how we need to convince the Rawalpindi government of the seriousness of the need to engage the fundamentalists. They have had two prime ministers assassinated and suffer frequent suicide bombings of civilian targets and military headquarters. They get it. What they don't need - and which our media and politicians regularly give them - is embarrassing calls for governmental change attached to aid agreements, publicized discussions about violations of their sovereignty with drone attacks, and discussions about cooperative plans to secure their nuclear weapons in the event of Taliban attacks. We have been on Pakistan's side since the Cold War (when the Russians picked India); their military leaders have attended American schools; they use American military aircraft. Vagueness is necessary for internal Pakistani sensitivities - and a strategy of pushing the terrorists across the border into Pakistan makes no sense.

3. Relative to Iraq: It is good to hear the grudging realization that the Petreus/McCain surge worked there and that the strategy of isolating extremists who abuse the population is to be copied. In a way, Iraq was harder with the Sunni/Shiite division, and the prospect of Arabs from throughout the Middle East coming for their chance at Eternity. The Afghan problem is Pashtun and largely limited to the South and East. Even there, there are not many folks wanting to die to help al Queda. (Again, limited objectives.)

4. Relative to Vietnam: (I served there in 1967-68, and worked on Southeast Asia stuff at the Pentagon in 1970-72.) Some justify the Afghanistan mission as a result of "but they attacked us and the Vietnamese never could", but it wasn't the Afghans who attacked us and al Queda could just as easily move to Yemen or Somalia. Ironically, the true risk becomes one of a "domino theory", with failure in Afghanistan leading to disaster in nuclear-armed Pakistan.

5. Relative to the Budget: An annual "all-in" cost for Afghanistan and Iraq since 9/11 has been about $940 billion. If we are to criticize the environmental crazies for not caring about the cost of their ideology, the Bush-era practice of carrying the cost of the Iraq War "off budget" should be avoided, and there should be a debate about guns, butter, and taxes. (Overall, we spend about 4 % of GDP for defence and 17% for health care.)

And on the politics:

1. There is little risk in the "begin withdrawal" date of July 2011. Aside from the Gates/Clinton/Jones tour to calm frayed nerves in the region and in the military, there is no way that Obama will create a Dunkirk-like collapse of his war a year before his reelection bid.

2. The New York Times had an excellent, long article on the White House's deliberations, which had two messages - there are more leaks than discussions, and the law professor asks a lot of good questions, but doesn't know how to bring it to a decision. Why he excluded General McChrystal from the discussions is anybody's guess.

3. Chris Matthews spoke from the heart for many on the Left when he called West Point the "enemy camp." These intelligent, educated, disciplined young patriots signed up well into the Iraq War and know what service awaits them. To many on the Left, this is unfathomable.

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Instead of a You Tube, this week's humor comes from a conference on governmental transparency put on by the new Office of Government Information Services. George Orwell would be delighted; the Daily Show should be. The conference at the Commerce Department was closed to the public and the media.

November 26, 2009

Khalid Sheik Muhammed and Eric Holder have one thing in common - they both want a show trial. Hopefully, the judge will not.

What does KSM want? In 2007 when he confessed to masterminding the 9/11 attacks and many other atrocities, he boasted of a plan to hijack another plane, and make a speech at an American airport after killing all of the male passengers. Holder has given him his stage, and as a bonus the opportunity to expose American intelligence sources and cause a second round of pain to the families of the victims.

What does Holder want? There are two lines of thought:

- The benign one - claimed by Holder and his defenders on the Left: Demonstrate the fairness and robustness of our judicial system. But this is belied by the fact that other Gitmo prisoners will be tried by military tribunals or held indefinitely, that Obama has assured the public that KSM will be convicted and executed, and that Holder has said that under any circumstance KSM will not be released. Justice?

- In the trial itself - In a criminal trial the defendant is entitled to a presumption of innocence (have Obama and Holder poisoned the jury pool?; can there be an impartial jury in New York?), the right to cross-examine witnesses (and expose them), to have access to all of the evidence, and to make extensive opening and closing statements. One can never be sure of 12 jurors - see OJ's "trial of the century". Judges can go off the rails - see the Scottish judge who released the convicted Lockerbie bomber. And in the end, the legal truism that "hard cases make bad law" reflects the risk that stretching criminal law to fit a preordained military outcome could set bad precedents.

- Beyond the trial - Senator Lindsay Graham points out that those capturing terrorists will need to read the prisoners their Miranda rights (which were not applied in this case), thus allowing lawyers and limiting interrogation benefits. It is also likely that some sources of intelligence will be exposed in the trial, and the incentive for informants to work with us will be severely compromised. (If Holder really did not consult with Obama, he may not be concerned about these things.)

The Geneva Conventions are clear that to be a lawful combatant (and thus be protected by the Conventions) a person must (a) be commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) have a fixed distinctive sign (such as a uniform) recognizable at a distance; (c) carry arms openly; and (d) conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. Absent that, they are entitled to humane treatment, but are subject to trial as war criminals or indefinite detention.

In 2006 Congress revised the laws covering military tribunals to meet legal and ideological objections to the Bush approach, and Holder has assigned the bombers of the USS Cole to that path.

Obama and Holder have not signaled their intent with the rest of the 200, except for Holder's explanation that the KSM group was in a civilian court because most of their victims were civilians. (If a terrorist wants more rights, kill civilians.) There may be a politically-motivated pragmatic approach that the forum will be chosen to prevent any prisoners from actually being released, with a handful held indefinitely. But law professor Obama does not distinguish between the purpose of criminal law (punish wrongdoers) and the purposes of military incarceration (prevent future damage and gather intelligence.)

In sum, with trials and appeals this will be a long and ugly process, designed by both KSM and the Obama administration to show the world the dark side of America. Two thirds of the public disagree with the decision - even before the $75 million price tag was disclosed. 2012 cannot come soon enough.

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This week's You Tube is a snippet of Senate testimony, in which Lindsay Graham demonstrates the inadequacy of Eric Holder's thinking.

November 13, 2009

Global leadership requires four elements: vision; capacity; skill; and resolve. One can reasonably argue that George W. Bush had the vision (spreading democracy as an antidote to Muslim fanaticism), capacity (the strongest economy and military), and resolve (the Iraq War; the East European missile shield), but suffered from a lack of skill (overbearing approach). Conversely, Obama's apparent idealistic Wilsonian vision of a lesser American role in the world is blurry, our economic capacity is reduced, the leader's inexperience (or perhaps naivete) is apparent, and dithering is a predominant feature. A quick survey:

1. Afghanistan: His appointed general provided recommendations to implement March's "carefully crafted" counterinsurgency strategy on August 30. Nearly four months later we have nothing, our enemies are emboldened, and our NATO allies are becoming restive as they have bought into General McChrystal's recommendations.

2. Iraq: The Bush / Maliki strategy for US withdrawal continues on the pace that Obama inherited, the Iraqis have settled their election law issues, and ongoing incidents of violence do not appear likely to derail the process. We have the first significant functioning Arab democracy. No change is a good thing.

3. Pakistan: The most dangerous country in South Asia has undertaken an aggressive stance against al Queda and the Taliban in the face of rising carnage in their cities. Clumsy and offensive American conditions attached to a $7.5 billion aid package -and Secretary of State Clinton's criticism for nor being more focused on al Queda - seem designed to paint President Zardari as an ineffective American stooge.

4. Iran: Cancellation of the Eastern European missile shield was intended to buy Russia's good will and support for a plan to ensure that Iran's nuclear program was limited to peaceful purposes. Forget that! Likewise, the dance about Iran sending their nuclear materials to France or Russia for peaceful purpose upgrade - a temporary illusion. The policy - talk for talk's sake.

5. North Korea: Nuclear and missile tests continue with nary a sideways glance as Obama's special envoy prepares to open bilateral discussions. At risk - the Bush policy of Six Party Talks with China in a major role.

6. Israel/Palestine: The graveyard where all good diplomats go to die. One can fault Obama/Hillary for tilting toward Israel in the latest round (which resulted in the announced retirement of Palestinian Authority President Abbas), but a peaceful "two state" solution has eluded the best diplomats for decades.

7. Honduras: We find ourselves on the side of Castro and Hugo Chavez in this battle between the Honduran Supreme Court and Legislature in their confrontation with a leftist president who tried to overthrow the constitutional provision for term limits. A recent agreement for November 29 elections would seem to overcome the Obama administration's demand that President Zelaya be reinstated.

8. Norway. Ah yes, the Nobel Peace Prize for which nominations were submitted within three weeks of Obama's inauguration.

As Woodrow Wilson found in the 20s, it is a dangerous world and good intentions are not enough. It was initially hoped that Joe Biden (Senate Foreign Relations chair), Hillary (Bill's global legacy), and the plethora of special envoys (Richard Holbrooke in Afghanistan/Pakistan, George Mitchell in the Middle East, Stephen Bosworth in Korea) would bring experience to an effective foreign policy. Instead, the plan to delegate foreign hot spots to a team of experts from the past has captured some good will, but is accompanied by a decline in influence.